


Across Your Lifetimes

by LazyWriterGirl



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Divergence as in Canon diverges so hard it turns into a Modern AU, F/F, Family Feels, I Wouldn't Suggest Binge Reading, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Reincarnation, Slow Build, Teacher-Student Friendship, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tharja Overthinks Everything, longfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 99,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyWriterGirl/pseuds/LazyWriterGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naga was mistaken. Their bonds were not enough to keep Robin from leaving their world for good, and now Tharja is alone. Or at least, she chooses to be alone, until Naga makes her an offer that she would be foolish to refuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Naga's Gift

**Author's Note:**

> You and I both know I own nothing except a copy of the game, the DLC I bought, and my dreams.  
> If you're from Tumblr or Fanfiction.net, hi!  
> If not, hi! I use the same username for everything...  
> Not much else to say. Let's see how quickly I can get everything up here.  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the rest of Tharja's life begins...

At first Tharja is worried that there is something wrong with her baby. So much in the last year has gone so dreadfully, horribly wrong that she wouldn’t be surprised.

With some difficulty the sorceress pushes herself up on her elbows. Morgan is looking down at the newborn who is-but-isn’t his sister, dark hair covering his eyes as he bends over the child. His hands are calm and quick as he cleans the infant off, and the elixirs on the table beside him are left untouched. Little Noire is safe.

Still, Tharja cannot shake the chill from her bones. Something is wrong. She turns to Noire, whose eyes are transfixed on her mother’s still-heaving belly.

“Mother, there’s another baby,” she says quietly, frowning.  

Tharja is confused. All of the children from the future had been single births.

“What?” Her voice is weak and soft, and she doesn’t know if Noire has heard her. It doesn’t matter, because the spasm rippling through her body warns her that the younger woman is right.

In spite of the pain growing in her abdomen, Tharja examines her daughter carefully. She watches as Noire brushes locks of snowy hair away from her face, staining the pure white strands red. Noire’s sage robes are dyed with Tharja’s birthing-blood. The feathers in her hair quiver as she kneels again, and coaxes her mother through the birth of another child.

 

***

 

It is a painful delivery. Had she been prepared, Tharja is certain she would have been able to devise a curse or hex that would have alleviated some of this dreadful aching. The birthing has come much, much earlier than she had anticipated.

The pain is unlike anything she has ever experienced before. It claws up and down her abdomen, ripping right through to her core. Her body is on fire. She is damp with sweat and her back aches from the constant arching of it; there is no comfort to be found on the birthing-cot. _Let it end._

Tharja gasps out fearsome curses, words she has long believed she had forgotten. This pain will be the end of her. The sorceress is sobbing by the time Little-Noire’s twin begins to crown. Noire’s calm directives help in distracting her mother from any thought other than the baby struggling out into the world from her womb, and she thinks fleetingly of how much like Robin the younger woman can be when she isn’t a quivering mess.

Tears of remembrance mingle with tears of pain.

Sometime later, Tharja hears a second newborn’s cries join Little Noire’s. She is exhausted, but lucid enough to register Morgan’s surprised gasp. With great effort Tharja forces herself back onto her elbows.

Noire holds the baby in her arms, turning the tiny body so that her mother can see what it is that has Morgan so confused. The baby is a boy. His head, unlike Little Noire’s, bears a shock of hair as dark as Tharja’s. The baby is Little Morgan, born one year too early. Born of the wrong mother.

Tharja and her two grown children come to an understanding at the same time. The solemnity of the situation is crushing. Naga’s blessing has assured that both hers and Robin’s children would be born in this timeline, but they had all assumed that the circumstances of their birth would not change.

And now there is proof that they were wrong.

Morgan’s face falls first and tears spring from his eyes. There will never be another chance for his conception in this timeline. Whatever has happened to Robin, she will never return to them.

The shock of the births and this new realization are too much for Tharja, and she falls unconscious. Her children do their best to take care of both her and their newly born selves. In their house, there is nothing but the cries of the newborns, and the gentle dripping of tears against the floorboards.

When she wakes, Tharja’s heart is numb.

 

***

 

One year. Tharja struggles along, watching the twins grow as their older selves fall deeper and deeper into despair for one full year before everything changes.

While most of the children from the future have already begun to move on in their lives, Tharja’s children remain by their mother’s side. They assist in raising themselves, fighting hard to give Little Noire and Little Morgan a loving home though every day their hearts are breaking. Tharja can see it. She feels it, and she is at a loss because without Robin she is not sure she could ever be a good mother. She is already failing.

Every night as she casts her protective curses around the house the way her own mother had done years before, Tharja adds in a silent prayer for Robin’s soul. She is no longer truly of the Grimleal, but cannot bring herself to pray to Naga outright, so instead she prays to Robin, wherever she is, the appropriate substitutions being made in old Grimleal prayers.

This life is so difficult, much more difficult than war could ever be. She wonders if things will ever change.

The next morning, the twins are discovered to be ill. A rare disease found in infants. Noire and Morgan are thunderstruck—this was supposed to be a happier life for their younger counterparts. Noire writes to the other future children, asking if anyone knows what can be done.

Almost as if by Naga’s blessing herself, Lissa comes to them within a week, and begins setting the twins on the path to recovery. Cordelia and Olivia arrive shortly after Lissa leaves. Tharja is wary of letting the two women into her home; she remembers a time when they competed with her for Robin’s attentions. Still, they mean well, and have brought grown Severa and Inigo with them. For her children’s sake, she allows the visitors to stay. She knows that she is no fit company for Morgan and Noire.

Her simple Plegian house feels so small.

“T—Tharja,” Olivia begins, and her lack of confidence is irritating. “Are…d-do you need help with the children?”

Tharja cannot speak. She has had very little to do with her twins, truth be told. The grief of losing Robin has changed her.

Cordelia seems to see this, and takes over for the shy pink-haired woman. She is kind when she speaks, encouraging almost, as she asks if Tharja would like for her to adopt Little Noire into her own house. She and Lon’qu will provide for the child—it is well within their means—and of course Tharja will be welcome to stay with them. Olivia extends the same offer on behalf of Little Morgan, saying Tharja will always have a place in her home; Henry would be glad to have a fellow Plegian with whom he could curse the cold Feroxi climate.

Tharja doesn’t speak, only tightens the veil of numbness surrounding her heart and agrees that the two women can adopt her children. She watches as her babies are taken from the arms of their older selves for the last time. She does not hold them herself, not even when her own children are offered to her to have one last time.

Cordelia’s warm smile makes her sick. The sweet crooning of Olivia’s voice drives her mad. They are much better mothers than she could ever be. That much is obvious. The twins will adore them, she is sure.

She cannot watch as Severa takes little Noire in her arms while Cordelia climbs gracefully onto the back of her alicorn. Severa hands over the infant version of her beloved to Olivia, who has seated herself behind Cordelia. The dark twin-tails of Severa’s hair are carried softly on the breeze as she climbs onto her black pegasus. Inigo sits behind her, cradling the Little Morgan though his eyes are locked with Tharja’s older son. The four visitors waving from their mounts take to the sky soon after, leaving Tharja and her time-travelling children behind.

It is for the good of their future, she tells herself. And she can visit them whenever she likes. Not that she will. It is too cold in Ferox.

 

 

She does not speak for days.

 

***

 

One more year passes, and at the end of it Tharja finds that she is alone. Her grief has proven too volatile for her children who, in spite of genuinely loving their mother, cannot ignore the strain that the adoption of the twins has placed on their relationship.

Morgan leaves their sad Plegian house first. He tells Tharja that he has been invited to stay with Inigo’s family in Ferox, and Tharja is not surprised. Olivia already has Tharja’s young son, why not her older one as well?

In spite of the bitterness she feels, Tharja cannot deny the young man; not when he looks at her with eyes just like her Robin’s. She wishes him joy and success, and he is gone the next morning, promises to return every once in a while left on a note by her pillow.

            He tells her he loves her, and that she must write if she needs him for anything at all.

 

           

She won’t be writing to him.

 

 

Noire stays a while longer, clearly envious of her brother’s freedom, and for the first time Tharja notices a hint of repulsion in the younger woman’s eyes whenever she interacts with her daughter. Noire is no longer terrified of her so much as disappointed. Disappointed that the Tharja of this time has become so very, very different from the mother who once made her cower with fear at the very thought of her.

When Noire leaves it is with bitter words and tears that flow freely from her pale eyes. Tharja allows the verbal abuse to ring out loud and clear and uninterrupted by her commentary; she owes her daughter that much. Strangely, she thinks she can see Robin in the way the pale girl’s white hair seems to gleam as her anger peaks. It’s Noire’s magical aura flaring, she knows, and it’s so reminiscent of Robin that it hurts Tharja to look at her.

Noire finishes her tirade quickly enough, and tells her mother that she’ll be joining Morgan in Ferox.

Tharja is no fool. Cordelia’s family also lives in Ferox, and she knows that Noire is going to be staying there, with Severa, until Severa moves them somewhere more to her liking. Tharja is envious of her daughter; she will be able to live out a happy existence with the woman she loves.

As with Morgan, Tharja wishes Noire well. She cannot hate them. She rather loves them, and it is only because they remind her of Robin that she cannot stand to be so near to them.

When the young woman leaves the next morning, there is another note by Tharja’s pillow.

 

 

_Mother, remember that Morgan and I love you. The twins will love you, even without knowing you, because you are their mother. Never forget that, and…take care of yourself._

_It’s what she would have wanted._

 

Tharja knows that the “she” is Robin, and her cold heart breaks all over again.

 

Cordelia and Olivia write her with regularity, sending small portraits of her children even though she knows what they will look like in the end. They reach out hands of friendship and a strange sense of filial duty, but she is too concerned with wanting to escape. Escape from what, she doesn’t know. The house is a prison.

 

Her children’s letters go unanswered, and yet they never cease to arrive at her door. When Tharja leaves the house, sick of the maddening sadness that permeates it, the letters continue to find her. She does not know how, and she doesn’t care to know. Though she never replies, the words are a small comfort as she travels through the Plegian desert alone.

 

The heat does little to warm her unfeeling heart.

It beats dully in her chest as she walks.

 

***

 

Decades after her wife’s disappearance, Tharja lies in the shade of a sand dune. She is dying. She is almost dead. Her eyes close and she cannot feel the heat of the wind or the warmth of the sand that is touching every inch of her body. Her tired heart beats slowly.

“Come, Tharja.”

It is not Robin who calls to her, and Tharja turns her face from the sky in disgust. Throwing a wrinkled hand before her eyes, she does her best to ignore the summons.

“Come, Tharja,” the voice repeats, gentle in spite of the command. She cannot help but obey. “Good. I have seen your grief and I have felt guilt for my part in it.”

“Leave me to die, Naga. My heart died all those years ago.”

“I am sorry,” says the voice, and Tharja knows this is not real; no divine creature would be so willing to apologize to a mere mortal. It is her dying thoughts that orchestrate this conversation.

“Leave me, apparition.”

 “No, Tharja. I am no such thing. I _am_ Naga.”

“I am not one of yours, Naga,” Tharja says. Though she fought against Grima, her entire upbringing was steeped in the culture of the Grimleal; Tharja is beyond Naga’s salvation.

Naga seems to think differently. “Yours has been a miserable life, and I would repair some of the damage that I have brought upon you, though I assure you such was not my intention.”

Tharja does not understand, but she is too hot now to concentrate on the implausibility of it all. Every fibre of her being burns. She stands, slowly, hating the weakness in her bones, and walks one step closer to the blinding light that has replaced the glare of the Plegian sun.

Naga takes her hand and walks with her, and the words that tumble from the divine dragon’s lips are both a comfort and a curse. She is not the first to be offered a deal by Naga, but it is a strange feeling nonetheless, to have been singled out so.

 

 

 

 

 

“I accept.”

“Then I wish you well.”

Tharja looks down, and the youth returns to her hands so quickly that it is soon as though her near-death was nothing more than a terror of the mind.

She walks on, without looking back.

In her chest, her heart beats surely, and she feels that some small warmth has been returned to it.

_You need only wait. She will return to you_ _._


	2. The Last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which sorrow and loneliness are Tharja's only companions...until they aren't.

When the last letter finds her in a small bar in Valm, Tharja knows it is the end.

There will be no more letters. Little Morgan, who wrote to her out of a strange sense of duty and what he called “love”—how could he love her? _—_ is dead at the age of three-and-ninety. The letter reads that he had enchanted it to find her body upon his passing. He’d never truly intended for her to read it.

She has to fight a smirk; yes, that must be it, as her boy couldn’t have possibly known that her body has escaped the ravages of time and flesh: the very same that have won his life from him.

Tharja drinks for the protection of her boy’s soul. He was the last. Her last tie to a time long since abandoned.

If she were another woman, his words would have moved her to tears. His words speak of a longing to know her, of a sadness in “the older me’s” eyes that made itself known when the rest of their Ferox-based family was together. She should have been part of it.

_“We wanted you there, Mother.”_

She chose the loneliness.

 

In her solitude, Tharja mourns the deaths of her comrades and family. Her children, both those from the future world and those whom she had birthed of her own womb, all of them are dead. The women who took them in, who gave them the mother’s love that she could not, both are dead; their kind husbands—the fathers her children would never have had otherwise—are dead and gone as well.

When she sleeps, passing through towns and cities alike, she dreams of them, and it is a wonder that she sleeps at all. They are as phantoms in the back of her mind.

Now, in the dim light of the bar, with the noise of rabble and ruffians surrounding her, she sees them, these phantoms that chase her through each passing day and stay with her at night. They are as unkind now as they are in her dreams.

She sees Cordelia’s flames of hair blowing about her as she accepts the title of Captain of the New Ylissean Pegasus Knights, Feroxi 1st Regiment. Little Noire and Little Severa—twelve years old and the same height—stand proudly behind her, dressed in the ceremonial armour of Pegasus Knight Cadets. They had not known Tharja was there, silently offering her congratulations and well-wishes to the woman who turned her younger daughter into a confident, accomplished little lady.

She sees Olivia dancing, confidence in every graceful movement as the pink-haired woman performs in honour of a certain special fallen friend of hers. Olivia dances for Robin, whose assistance was crucial in Olivia building the theatre in which she now dances. Little Inigo holds Little Morgan’s hand tightly as they watch the beautiful woman’s every motion. They had not known Tharja was watching, as enraptured in the dance as her fellow audience members.

She sees Noire’s eyes light up as Severa drops a sweet kiss on her shoulder even though the twin-tailed woman is weary from a long day’s trek. No words pass between them. The pair has travelled for quite some time now, revelling in the simple joy of having each other through the lonely days and stormy nights. They had not known how close Tharja was, how much their happiness warmed her even as the wind railed against her bones.

She sees Morgan and Inigo dancing together, her son laughing because he is not much for a dance. Proof that he is her son too, though the sweet chimes of his laughter are so very like Robin’s it kills her just a little. Inigo’s own hearty laughs mingle with Morgan’s and the dancer smiles even as his best boots are trodden upon time and again. They had not known how much happiness Tharja had wished for them, the two fools, dancing without music in the cold night streets of Ferox.

So much warmth. So much love.

It is all over now.

There will be others who share such moments, but they will never mean as much to Tharja as the phantom visions that stalk her through the nights.

She pities them, yet pities herself more. In death they have found rest.

Tharja will have no such peace. Naga’s gift is more curse than blessing, in that now she is truly alone. She drinks to their spirits, and then indulges herself in the best the barkeep can offer her. She does not know how she manages to pay for her indulgences, but she leaves the bar with some gold left to spare. The splitting headache she feels upon waking helps to distract her from wallowing in the sadness that remains.

Perhaps it had never truly left her.

 

***

 

She is travelling through Chon’sin, where Say’ri’s granddaughter now rules. It is during an oration by the young empress that Tharja runs into the first familiar face that she has seen in almost a century.

The Voice of Naga looks yet unchanged, though the sadness in her eyes has only grown with the passing of years. The sorceress wonders what the manakete could possibly be doing at the young empress’ oration, but it is Tiki who speaks first.  

“You are unchanged, sorceress,” she notes. Tiki speaks in the same melodiously sad voice that Tharja remembers from the war times.

“Your mother’s doing,” she says drily.

Tiki nods, unsurprised. Tharja begins to question why that is, only to be met with an answer she should have expected.

“It is because of Robin…isn’t it?” The sweet thrum of Tiki’s voice calms Tharja. She still cannot bear to hear her wife’s name uttered aloud under normal circumstances, but Tiki is not unkind; she knows of Tharja’s pain. Understands it, Tharja realizes. “You are searching for her.”

She merely nods in reply. They sit together, on the elevated seats, watching Say’ri’s granddaughter greet her people. The woman’s voice is mild, softer and more lyrical than Say’ri’s had been, and her eyes are a bright, brilliant violet. The tips of her ears are visible from under a haircut similar to her grandmother’s, but with a second look Tharja sees that they are pointed. _She isn’t human_. Tharja’s confusion only intensifies when she catches, for the briefest of seconds, the way that the woman’s eyes scan their row of seats. The gaze is full of love when the empress catches sight of Tiki.

“She is my son’s child,” Tiki says when she catches Tharja’s bewildered expression. “He was killed by insurgents almost three decades ago. I do not visit the palace as much as I once did now—it hurts me too much—but Saeki and I share fond memories of her childhood between us.”

“Your son’s child? Emperor Yen’fay was your son?” The understanding hits her quickly, almost immediately after she asks the question. “The empress…You bedded Empress Say’ri.” She does not question how such a union could produce a child; her own family was an example of the possibility.

Some moments later Tiki nods, and there is a blush on her face that does not match the despair in her eyes. “I have loved many throughout my lifetime, sorceress, but Say’ri was different. She will forever remain special to my heart.”

She does not say more, and Tharja does not press, though she wants to ask if Say’ri is more special to Tiki than Marth once was. She has the decency to stop herself.

The rules are different for Tiki, whose lover lived to the end of a full life and died a natural death. Besides, the woman had already lived some millennia, and has always been destined to live many, many more. To question her would be to be needlessly cruel, and like with many things, Tharja lacks the heart for cruelty. At least, she does _now_.

Tharja puts a hand on Tiki’s, not knowing why. Perhaps it is that she feels closer to the other woman in their sadness. Perhaps it is because Tiki was, as she once was, a Shepherd in Chrom’s army, fighting to save the world from Grima.

Perhaps she has just missed the feeling of friendly contact.

She does not know why, but she does it anyway.

Tiki does not seem to know either, but this is something she clearly needs as well. That is why—at least, that is what Tharja tells herself is why—when Tiki offers the Plegian woman refuge in her home atop the Mila tree, Tharja accepts. She could use a rest.

It will only be for the night, she tells Tiki. Then she will be gone.

 

 

Tharja stays with Tiki for a full year, and when she leaves the temple atop the Mila tree, the Voice of Naga follows her.

 

 

They are travelling through the farthest reaches of Chon’sin, Tiki leading the way to a place only she knows, when Tharja sees Robin again. They are passing through a small commercial town, in search of a place to sleep for the night, and as Tharja looks up she sees, for the briefest of moments the brand of Grima flashing in the air, almost perfectly transparent, over the head of a young woman. The brand of the Exalt, Naga’s brand, flashes above the same woman once, then twice, and then both brands are gone and Tharja is staring.

At first she does not believe that it could be true. This is not the same Robin she once knew. This Robin is a tall, tall woman with short dark pink hair— _what a colour_ —that swoops over one of her perfect grey-brown eyes. Her voice is deeper, her speech more tersely cut and yet…it must be Robin.

“Go to her, but be wary…she does not yet know who you are, Tharja,” Tiki warns. It is sound advice.

Tharja walks towards Robin. The woman is seated alone under a young oak tree, a book in one hand and an apple in the other. A familiar scene. It pulls at Tharja’s heart even though this is not the way her Robin once looked.

With some relief Tharja notes that the book is not a tome, but a novel; she would not like to think that Robin sacrificed her life to end one battle, only to be thrown into another in her next life.

Tharja is also glad that Tiki convinced her to exchange her sorceress’ robes for a more modern dress; the people of this time are all much more conservative than she remembers her own society being. Tharja’s new dress is a dark enough colour to be in line with her tastes, but fits well without being immodest. At least, those were the words of the pushy merchant. She had barely escaped being hexed with a permanent runny nose, the annoying wench.

Tharja shakes the aggravating woman from her thoughts, mind springing into action. What can she possibly say? What can she do? Robin surely would not recognize her. The memories Tharja has of their life together are strong, but they will take time to make themselves known to this iteration of the great tactician of the Shepherds.

“Excuse me, miss?” she says. Her voice sounds strange. It is difficult to curb the enthusiasm that threatens to creep into her voice, but she does it. It would be best not to scare Robin before they came to know each other again.

Robin looks up, surprised that she is not alone. The guarded, confused look in the woman`s eyes throws Tharja off her balance. Her Robin had always known when Tharja was near, even before they became inseparable. _She_ would never have been startled. _This_ Robin closes her book gently, one finger trapped between the pages to keep her place.

“Yes? What may I help you with, ma’am?” Robin asks, in her strange new voice. The smile on her lips is small, born out of politeness and nothing else.

The formality of it all is too much for Tharja to bear, and she makes a simple question of the time before hurrying back to Tiki. The blank expression adorning the unlined face of the Voice of Naga speaks volumes. Tiki pities her, it is plain to see.

“Tharja?”

“I cannot bear to think that she has forgotten me, Tiki. Come, we will go.”

They leave the public garden and settle in a nearby inn. Tharja is sullen throughout the entirety of the meal though the food is surprisingly good and the people are friendly. She is thankful when it is over and she is free to sit by herself and brood. _What a wasted opportunity_.

It is Tiki’s turn to sleep on the bed so the sorceress rolls a blanket out across the floor, curling into herself until her body is not much different from a ball. With some effort, Tharja hexes herself to sleep after bidding her companion a quick goodnight.

She hopes that Tiki will not see the trails of saltwater staining her cheeks.

“There will be other chances, Tharja,” Tiki tells her the next morning. “We’ve spoken at length about the conditions of Mother’s gift. All that this means is that this was not yet your time.”

They have purchased horses from the stables nearby, and Tharja has no choice but to agree with Tiki as the creatures carry them away from the little town. She will need to be better prepared from now on.

Robin will not remember her; Naga had told her as much. She will have to be ready to face her lover, who is but is not _her_ lover. It will be painful. It promises tears. Robin might, in some cases, be surrounded by familiar faces: reincarnation is not limited to Robin alone. Tharja knows that none but herself and Tiki—and a few others she has not quite forgotten—will ever hold their precious shared memories, but it is both gladdening and painful to think that she might someday again see the faces of the men and women she lived and fought and bled with.

 

Even if they do not know her face she will know theirs, and she will be content.

 

She has to force herself to look away from the town, trusting in Tiki to guide her horse along the path. To her credit, Tiki leaves the sorceress alone to grieve what feels, in Tharja’s mind, as tragic as her first experience in losing Robin. The horses move swiftly, steadily, and they cannot have been riding for more than two hours when Tiki announces that they have arrived. Her voice seems entirely too loud, too obviously asking for someone’s attention. They are standing before a large cliff face, the craggy rocks protecting what Tharja imagines to be quite a cosy little hideaway.

“Tiki? Mother, Tiki has come!”

“Tiki!”

“Lady Tiki!”

Three small bodies burst forth from the cave, and Tharja can feel the tears welling up in her eyes again. Curse this light, but it has done something to her eyes. The sound of dragon-feet touching stone is heard, followed by the familiar sound of transformation, and when Tharja is able to open her eyes again she sees Nowi, Nah, and Little Nah all looking up at her. Little Nah—not truly so little—is the first to lose interest, never having seen Tharja before in her life, and after a brief hello she clambers up and over Tiki as if the woman were little more than a playscape.

“Tharja…how?” Nah stares at her in wonder. “…You have been blessed by Naga.”

 _Cursed,_ Tharja wants to say, but she doesn’t, because Nah would not appreciate the sentiment. She was always a clever girl, and though she does not appear to have aged very much, Tharja gets the feeling that Nah has begun to take wisdom from the sufferings of her past future life.

She cannot dwell on the philosophical for long, thankfully, as Nowi is crying and clutching her closely. The little dragon-girl has begun to grow, but the changes are not drastic. Nowi is still much shorter than Tharja, who is not a particularly tall woman. Aside from _slightly_ rounder “boingy bits” and a _slightly_ sharper cast on her facial features, Nowi remains the way she once was in the sorceress’s memory.

Tharja looks down at the head of pale green hair and cannot help but smile. She has missed Nowi, who was always kind to her. The first of the tears falls, leaving more salted pathways along the lines of her face. She clutches Nowi to her chest and allows herself to feel some small happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going to try to get a ton of chapters up since it's mostly just reposting, so here goes nothing.


	3. Encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which her life has become a cycle of meetings, and Tharja just wants it to stop.

Centuries pass.

The quintet ages so slowly that they cannot tell how much time is slipping through their hands, and Tharja sometimes spends decades hating herself. She and the dragonkin have built something of a family together, and that is a comfort to her after every failure, but even that is not enough.

She has seen Robin so many times that she is beginning to feel the situation is hopeless, but she cannot give in to the sadness. For her, the world is endless. The world, she finds, is cruel.

She sees Robin too many times for the world to prove this untrue.

 

***

 

The first encounter happens about seventy years after their little family is born. On a ship headed towards the continent of her birth, Tharja sees a man. Above him flash the brands of Grima and Naga, just long enough for Tharja to notice him. She is not sure she would have otherwise.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about this man. From his face, she assumes that he is some twenty years, nearing thirty. He wears his plain brown hair in the current style, long and straight. His build is neither thin nor fat, neither tall nor short. One of the most distinguishing features about him is the pair of glasses that perches on his average-sized nose.

Tharja thinks that there must be some mistake. It is not that Robin is a man in this life that bothers her—she’d not loved Robin for her gender in the first place. This man, however, just seems so absolutely ordinary, so very common, that Robin’s soul could not possibly have manifested itself within him.

Tharja is prepared to turn away…and then he looks up, and his eyes meet hers.

They are the same as they have been twice before: grey-brown and intelligent, intense, and heartbreakingly beautiful. Heartbreakingly familiar. It is no mistake. This is her Robin.

And just as she readies herself to meet the love of her life once more, she stops. A woman that cannot possibly be Exalt Chrom’s wife—she died just as all the others did—steps onto the deck. She stumbles though the ship passes smoothly through the waters, and Tharja feels her heart break as Robin moves to catch the woman. Whether it is destined to be or not, Tharja has already lost Robin to another: a shadow of the kind Shepherd who had often made pies for her tired comrades.

Heartsick, she does not mention it to Nowi or the others. She knows there is no need to.

They can see it on her face.

 

***

 

Tharja isn’t sure, but it must be only about eighty years after she sees Robin on the boat. The next time their paths cross, Robin is a man again.

Tharja and the dragonkin are settled in the Plegian desert, which Tharja is sure has shrunk considerably since Robin’s original life. The once overwhelming heat of the desert does not bother her as much as it rightly should. She wonders at how such weak heat could have ever threatened her life.

The sun does not shine brightly in her eyes. At the very least, it pales in comparison to the bright blond of this new Robin’s hair. He is a big man. Tall and broad-shouldered, his form alone boasts of a physical power the likes of which Tharja has never known Robin to have. It reminds her somewhat of the old sellsword she had met amongst the Shepherds: Gregor. Tharja is surprised to find the name float up into her grasp so easily.

Apart from prayers for the souls of her children, she’s not thought about the dead in decades.

As it turns out, this Robin is chief of the desert tribe that finds the dragonkin during a sandstorm. Contrary to the roughness of his appearance, it is through Robin that an invitation to stay with his people—at least for the night—is produced. Though it is difficult on her heart, Tharja accepts. By the light of the fireside she can see that he is not as handsome as she would have expected. It does not bother her. The scars on his face are from his youthful wildings, he tells her as he warms his hands against the flame, his sole action against the bitter desert winds.

 

She knows, in that moment, that she can never love Robin any less no matter what the other may look like, no matter what the other may have done.

 

Just as Tharja begins to grow accustomed to the idea of settling down, just before she can begin to consciously share memories of their past together, Robin is killed. A rival for the chiefdom murders Tharja’s soul mate in his sleep, and he is gone before she can share the wonders of their past life with him. When she learns of the truth, she does something that she will forever regret.

 

It is Little Nah who pulls her away from the burning remains of the desert settlement.

 

As the dragon-child watches on, Tharja loses her stomach in the sands.

 

***

 

For the next few decades Tharja does not speak unless spoken to. Forty years, then fifty, then perhaps two or three centuries on. The massacre of the desert tribe weighs heavily on her mind. The scent of burning forces the substance from her stomach. She drinks little and eats less, and Tharja does not want to tell anyone, but she is dying.

But she cannot die.

She curses Naga’s name to the skies, but receives no answer. Tiki rides alongside her, eyes downcast, and refuses to meet her gaze. The dragonkin are all careful around her, loath to say anything that might upset Tharja. She knows that she does not deserve their patience.

Naga’s protection harms her more than helps her, but Tharja holds herself together using what little warmth of spirit she has left; and watches as the dragonkin grow slowly, ever so slowly. Though their bodies do not show much by way of aging, their minds do; they become more aware of the strange circumstances in which she finds herself, and she knows how much they pity her.

 _They_ were born to live forever—or at least closer to forever than Tharja was ever meant to live. She is an anomaly in nature; one of her kind should not exist.

Tharja envies the dragonkin their knowledge of belonging in the world. She is not so sure she should be here. Though she tries often, she cannot quell her own existence. It is only after tearful intercessions by her family—Tiki and Nowi more strongly than the children—that she ceases in her attempts, and by then her body is weak and tantalizingly close to death.

Teasingly close.

At this, the lowest point in her life, she sees Robin again; it is this time’s Robin who finds Tharja fainted in the middle of an anonymous forest. Amidst the flurry of tears and embraces from the dragonkin, Tharja does not realize the true identity of her saviour. She is too disoriented in her sadness to recognize the tiny youth with the violet hair as the woman who took her heart away into death.

Passing through days and nights with no words leaving her lips, and no light reaching her eyes, Tharja is adrift of consciousness. She does not question when the dragonkin choose to settle in the youth’s small village: a collection of cozy little huts in the most isolated corner of what was once the halidom of Ylisse.

Though she does not see her visitor, the dragonkin are quick to say that the youth is rather taken with Tharja. She comes to visit when Tharja sleeps, and watches over her for hours at a time, or so Little Nah says. Tharja herself is too busy sleeping and wishing she could die to actually take notice.

 

 

Little Nah seems determined to change that. One boring day, the dragon girl’s carroty hair flies into Tharja’s eyes as Little Nah jumps onto her cot. Tharja has by now mastered the patience it takes not to scream or curse the young manakete to kingdom come.

“That girl is Robin!”

“Is she, little one?”

“Of course!”

Tharja does not question the dragon girl’s judgement.

What she says must be true.

For the first time since their arrival in the little village, Tharja waits for her persistent visitor to come, forcing herself to delay her usual sleep. The brief flash of the brands appears as the violet-haired youth enters the tent some time later. Robin appears somewhat startled when she enters the tent to find the once-sorceress awake.

It bothers her to see Robin so hesitant around her.

“How do you feel this evening, Miss Tharja?” asks the girl. She cannot be more than fourteen or fifteen, but she is a rather pretty thing, if small for her age. Tharja feels guilty, in the pit of her stomach, though she has not done anything yet. She knows that the world has changed. Children are children longer now; the rules are different, and this time she intends to play by the rules. The guilt still hurts her though.

It is the fear of wanting.

Tharja wills her body to relax as this new Robin combs the bed-tied knots from Tharja’s long black hair, pressing entirely too closely to Tharja’s wasted frame. As she works, Robin sings a little song, sounding much better than Tharja can ever remember her wife sounding. _Some things must change, I suppose._

 

It is with a twisting in her heart that Tharja decides on her next course of action.

 

They must leave before Robin becomes a fully fledged adult in the eyes of her village.  Robin is too young to have her entire life twisted outside-in. She deserves a chance to become her own person, without Tharja bringing up memories that should have been left for dead more than half a millennium ago, if she’s not lost track of the centuries yet.

Tiki notices the malcontent in Tharja’s eyes, and asks her for a private audience as soon as Robin leaves. Tharja cannot decline. She owes so very much to the Voice.

“You would run from her?”

Tharja nods. “I realize that you have built a life here with Nowi and her daughters. I will not ask you to come with me.”

Tiki laughs. In the firelight she appears as young as she had during the Valmese War, though Tharja knows just where to look to see the beginning of stressed, tired lines in the manakete’s face.

 _How long will we run? Won’t you come with me?_ “I don’t see what is so funny about this,” she says instead, because it is easier to be petulant than to be honest.

Tiki hides behind her hands a moment longer before shaking her head. “Nothing is humorous, you are right. I am merely surprised. I would have thought that you were aware of this, but we are your family. We will never leave you, Tharja.”

 _Family._ She can’t remember when last she had one of those, but what the Voice says must be true.

As if on cue, the rest of the dragonkin step out of the home they all share, and move to embrace Tharja. Ideas of running flee her mind for the moment, and for the first time in the last fifty years, Tharja allows herself to cry in front of Tiki, Nowi, Nah, and Little Nah.

This newfound happiness is short-lived.

Robin comes to their home the next evening, pale-faced. She has seen a memory. The battle after her wedding to Tharja. Thankfully, she is more curious than frightened, and she does not yet know of her relationship with the woman she has watched over so faithfully these past few months.

Tharja invites her to speak about what she has seen, and the dragonkin afford the two as much privacy as they can in the tiny house. Though Robin’s wonderful, familiar eyes are on her, Tharja feels a sharp discomfort. Something feels strange.

Wrong.

 

***

 

Weeks later Tharja insists on following through with her plan. It is the night before Robin’s sixteenth birthday.

She cannot bear to take the opportunity at a real life away from the youth, who follows Tharja about the village much in the same way that some of the boys and girls follow Robin. Though she does not go out much, there have been rumours that the village elder granted a child permission to wed an outsider upon coming of age, and while she might be wrong, Tharja does not want to stay to find out. She does not understand her own discomfort, but all that she wants is to be away from Robin.

The next morning, they are miles away from the village.

Nowi’s children wear brave faces and set about picking up where they left off the last time they were homeless: Little Nah learns to hunt with better efficiency, learns how to draw attention away from her pointed ears and youthful appearance. She’d joined her older self and her mother after living out the duration of her husband’s life, and was more human than manakete in behaviour and instinct...even now, centuries later; she lacks the ferocity of her fellow dragonkin in battle.

Not that they ever truly need to battle anything other than their relative isolation. The Risen are long disposed of, and humanity has outlasted many of the other beasts that once lived in concert with them. Perhaps those days are behind them, but Tharja knows peace to be a difficult concept to embrace. Nowi, looking ever so slightly older now, seems to feel the same way. Sometimes they spar with each other, always carefully out of view of the children.

It is worth the small deceits, to feel alive for just a moment.

 

One evening, Nah shows Tharja a weathered notebook; Miriel’s mother’s once, then Miriel’s, then Laurent’s, now in the possession of the latter’s widow. She studies it often, as Tharja learns, gleaning what she can from the rain-swollen, travel-worn pages. Little Nah has her own copy of the book, of course, and it is in much better condition, but Nah leaves that for her younger self. Who knows what the younger Laurent might have written; Tharja might have been curious once, but not any longer.

Eventually Little Nah leaves them, to travel through the Outrealms. The younger Laurent had detailed a vision of his, a dream to one day explore the Outrealms with his wife at his side. While he no longer breathes, Little Nah is determined to see her husband’s dreams realized in some small way, and she steps through the Outrealm portal—the last left of its kind—with a backwards glance and words of love on her lips. Love for them.

Tharja feels like life has become a series of tragedies, some large, some small, all of them with the ability to break what is left of her heart into pieces.

With nothing to amuse herself, Little Nah gone, and with few relics of her original time period, Tharja decides to learn more about the evolution of the world. One thing is for certain; her magic is dying. She feels it slipping away from her day by day: the draining feeling is almost unnoticeable at first, but each passing year seems to exact a heavier toll. It is difficult, letting go of something so integral to her being, but Tharja knows, logically, that the world is heading into a new era.

One morning she notices that the draining feeling is gone. She can still feel a hint of her magic, and after a morning’s practice she notes that intense concentration ensures that the majority of her efforts are at least partially rewarded. Perhaps this is some sort of gift from Naga, or perhaps it is a function of her own magic; Tharja doesn’t care either way.

The dragonkin slowly lose their ability to transform, even with the strongest dragonstones. More evidence of a changing world. Tiki seems to take the discovery the easiest, and Tharja feels that she may understand just why that is. Tiki has been alive for so long that her powers are just another thing to be lost to time.

Just one more loss.

They go through the motions of their lives, Tharja, Tiki, Nowi, and Nah. Robin lives and dies, and lives and dies. Sometimes Tharja watches the love of her life pledge herself (or himself, as the case sometimes is) to somebody else—it hurts most when that somebody else is a Shepherd reincarnated. Other times, Robin is too young or too old to be interested in Tharja. The pain in those cases is slightly less.

Still other times, Tharja is lucky, and she and Robin share some time together before some circumstance or other strikes and Robin lies dead while Tharja moves on to the next tragedy. These are the bitterest moments.  More memories to share, more difficulty in the task Naga has set in return for her unending life.

 

***

 

As if sent to break the cycle of watching Robin live and die as they continue to exist, Tharja’s strange family is sent another member in the form of Anna, the Secret Seller. For the first time Tharja realizes that they’ve been seeing fewer and fewer Annas around. Their Anna—and it _is_ she who fought alongside them against the Fell Dragon—alludes to the reason for this, but Tharja can’t listen: she’s had enough tragedy to deal with as of late; hearing more might possibly kill her.

After a quick family discussion Tiki takes the question to Tharja personally. They were the original company, they two. Tharja accepts the addition of Anna into their family without much hesitation. It would be nice to have another human along, not because she dislikes the dragonkin in any way, but to satisfy some small feeling or want of companionship, she supposes.

Whatever it is that motivates Tharja’s decision, Anna is surprisingly appreciative of the whole thing. She even goes so far as to _hug_ Tharja. Needless to say, the dark-haired woman tenses up considerably; they’d not been close, ever, and their relationship with take some time.

“It’s been harder to make sales lately, even for me, and _wow_ I’ve been lonely! Thanks for having me along… _family_!”

Tharja sincerely hopes she won’t regret her decision.

Centuries pass.

 


	4. Upheaval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the universe proves that it is a bigger bitch than karma.

Tharja has not seen Robin in more than two hundred years.

Her family shares her grief, and their bonds tighten at each familiar face that blooms and dies before them Time seems to have slowed down for them, and each passing is highlighted by more pain than the last. They settle back down in Ylisstol eventually—or at least somewhere they all agree is roughly the right spot—and begin to build a life that will last them as long as they wish it to last.

To help the process, Tharja applies what little magic she has left into creating a long-lasting glamour—they will never appear the same to each passing generation, negating the need to move away as people around them age.  A small, albeit complicated piece of magic, Tharja feels some relief that this, at least, was not taken away from her.

The dull thrum of power that remains with her following the spell is comforting—she does not know if she will ever cast another spell, or even if it is possible, but she is content on that front. There is little need for sorcery in this age, and though it will always serve as a reminder of her roots, Tharja does not cherish her art as strongly as she once did. That time has passed.

Some things however, are worth cherishing, and it is ultimately Nah who introduces the idea of keeping at least some of their history alive, for the educational benefit of modern Ylisseans.

The beginnings of a museum spring up out of a combination of Anna’s questionably large collection of belongings from their bygone life , and personal curios that they can no longer bear to keep. The idea is held together firmly through Nah’s determination to do _something_ with the organizational skills instilled in her by her husband and it is decided, with little difficulty, that though they all share in the museum—both as a responsibility and as a source of profit—it is Nah’s to oversee and organize. Taking a different tack in keeping at least some of their time period alive, Tiki turns to the direct education of modern Ylissean youth—as a part of history, it is only fitting that she should teach it.

After some reluctance and the discovery of a strange aptitude for teaching which they had never known about before, both Nowi and Tharja follow her lead. The classes they have to take are not difficult, and the information is mostly accurate; where it is not, they change things with their papers. By the time Tharja’s _nth_ birth certificate says that she’s twenty-three, both she and Nowi have completed multiple degrees of varying usefulness.

Eventually it becomes second nature for Tharja and her companions to pretend that they belong in this new world. Tharja turns twenty-three so many times that she loses count, and then, when she’s had enough of that, she puts it down in print that she’s twenty-seven years old and leaves it to Anna to sort out all the rest of the bureaucratic details.

They continue on in their lives, Tharja letting go of her ancient-day behaviours, thoughts, and speech in favour of the trends of modernity. Her family follows suit. Tiki—taking on the surname “Sairi” out of some strange form of humour or perhaps on a whim after a night of too much drinking—becomes the head of Ylisstol University’s Department of History, bringing both Tharja and Nowi into the faculty as professors in their own rights, and teaching assistants for some of her larger classes.

Tharja feels her stresses give way to a complacent contentment. She is not truly happy, none of them are, but she can see herself and her family living out the rest of their lives in this vein. The world seems to be at a standstill.

And then, suddenly, it revolves so violently that for the first time in two or three centuries, Tharja wishes she could get off the ride.

 

 

 

All it takes is the arrival of one girl.

 

***

 

Tharja is preparing to guide, for the _nth_ time, a tutorial for Tiki’s second-year history class: Early Ylissean History from the Birth of the Halidom to the First Plegian War. She is so busy with fervently hoping that she won’t have to deal with unruly first-years that she doesn’t notice the sound of footsteps until they’ve come to stop fairly close behind her.

“Excuse me, are you Dr. Noirgan?”

Tharja feels her insides freeze. “Yes. Take a seat, please.”

There’s the sound of a merry laugh and a swish of air as the girl turns to do as she’s told. Tharja hears the familiar sound of shoes hitting the stairs. She waits. Normally the first students to arrive do so to ensure a seat at the back, where Tharja will be relatively uninterested in how they choose to spend their time.

To her surprise, the girl turns and seats herself in the first row. She can tell from the closeness of the breathing behind her. The gaze feels too familiar to be mistaken, and Tharja knows without looking that this girl is Robin. She has to be. Nobody else has ever been able to unsettle Tharja in this way.

The dark-haired woman panics for the first time in more than a hundred years. To hide this she busies herself in her preparations, shifting this way and that, keeping her back to the girl at all times. Though she gets the distinct feeling that the girl is studying her rather too intently, she does not turn around. More students enter.

“Yo, Bubbles,” says a carefree voice. Tharja flinches and breathes a sigh of relief at the same time—it would be difficult for Nowi to have to teach her husband’s reincarnation for a full school year. Tharja suspects that her green-haired friend never did surmount her grief at losing her beloved husband-thief, and while Robin has popped up multiple times now—this would be her 48th appearance—Tharja does not believe she has ever seen Gaius.

“Hey, Gaius,” says Robin, with the practiced nonchalance of a popular individual. The name hurts to be heard. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Hell if I know,” offers Gaius. _That can’t be Gaius._

“I _was_ right behind him, until he— _That can’t be the Exalt._

“Chrom! Nya ha!” _That can’t be Henry._

The chatter continues, and Tharja feels a sting in her heart. The voices. The warmth and camaraderie. She recognizes the names. It is unfair, she feels, to have brought back her loved ones with the names they first held, and the voices they once had, and the strong bonds that they had once before.

She remembers that the world is a _bitch_ and it makes sense.

Tharja checks out of her students’ conversation long enough to scan the student list. Her eyes lock onto several names, and as she reads she shakes her head at her ill fortune. If these are the same names, and if her suspicions are correct, then she will be turning to face seven figures from her past. Seven lost comrades, Robin among them.

Perhaps she has been lucky these last long years; and now her luck has died away altogether.

The hands of her watch align, and it is time to begin. With dread, Tharja turns to face her class for the first time in the year. Even though she is somewhat prepared, the sight before her very nearly gives her a heart attack.

But of course the world is not so kind to her as that.

It really _is_ Robin. Unmistakeably. She looks exactly as she did in her first life—if Tharja can rightly assume that that _was_ Robin’s first life—and the resemblance almost forces tears from Tharja’s eyes. This, more so than any other she has seen in all her years and years and years of living, is the woman she lost, and practically sold her humanity to find again. This is her Robin.

Tharja holds fast against the temptation to cry, and forces herself to look all about the room with a practiced ease.

To her surprise, Robin raises an appraising eyebrow in her direction. She remembers the look well. It’s completely inappropriate in this instance, of course, but Tharja cannot deny the little tingle of pleasure she gets from knowing that Robin is looking at her that way. In spite of herself, she looks the girl straight in the eye and receives a wink for her efforts. She feels the blush rising and curses herself for it.

A pretty girl with pale pink hair nudges Robin from the right side, while an attractive redhead offers the girl a small, sly grin from the left. Olivia and Cordelia look very good in this modern age; having been born into it, that is no surprise. Less surprising still is the close relationship that they share with her wife’s reincarnation.

Tharja feels…strange.

“Hello everyone, welcome to your tutorial for HIST 2050, Early Ylissean History from the Birth of the Halidom to the First Plegian War. I trust that you all received a copy of the course syllabus in Professor Sairi’s class, but raise your hand if you did not.”

Unsurprisingly, the modern Gaius stretches his arm upward just enough that Tharja can see the top of a box of candy protruding from one of his pockets; he sits just behind Robin, in the second row, where he is flanked by Chrom and Henry, with Maribelle on Henry’s other side, staring wistfully in Olivia’s direction. _Huh._

Tharja quickly hands Gaius a paper and backs away, towards the safety of her desk.

She soldiers on.

“Now, as I’m sure Professor Sairi has mentioned, we won’t be doing very much here today. We have the next twenty-four weeks for that,” she says. There’s a small murmur of amusement from her students, and Tharja manages a small smile. She can tell that in spite of the monotone of her voice, she has the full attention of her class.

At least, her body has their full attention.

Naga’s curse of a gift has slowed her aging process to that of the dragonkin’s, and Tharja knows that she looks good today. Very good. Though she has lost count of the years upon endless years of her life thus far, physically she appears young: almost too young perhaps, to be a professor, but that has never bothered anybody.

“As I’m also sure you all know by now, my name is Tharja Noirgan. My family is Plegian, but I have lived in Ylisstol for most of my life,” she says drily. “I must warn you that I am a tenured professor of this university and teach my own classes in addition to this tutorial, so anyone expecting an easier time with me than with Professor Sairi is sorely mistaken.”

She’s done this so much that the words come so easily. Tharja wonders if there’s anything in her that Robin’s soul might recognize, but she doubts it. Robin has lived and died and lived and died so many times that Tharja is almost unsure what remains from their time as a family, and as for herself…she would be lying to say that she has not changed.

She _has_ changed: perhaps it has all been for the better, but she knows that she is not all that she once was.

Tharja continues. “I ask for your respect; in turn I will give you mine. I don’t mind you calling me by my first name, so long as you pronounce it properly, and are appropriate in your usage. Does anyone have any questions?”

“I do, _Thar-ya_ ,” says Robin, a familiar grin playing on her lips. _Exactly how she used to._

Tharja feels a sudden difficulty in breathing. “Yes, Miss…?”

“Grimm. Robin Grimm.” Robin winks at her friends before turning back to Tharja. “With all due respect, aren’t you a little young to be a professor?”

Tharja can’t help but fire back a saucy little smile of her own. “I’ve put in my time and effort. I assure you that I have all the appropriate and necessary credentials.”

“If you don’t mind my asking though, how old _are_ you? Because, and I say this with, again, the utmost respect, you look like you can’t be past your twenties yet.”

Tharja knows that she should say something. If she is lenient with Robin’s attitude, the other students will think it appropriate to follow suit in future, and that will be yet another headache to deal with on top of this mess.

She can’t bring herself, however, to snap at this new Robin, and so instead she takes a deep breath and says, “I’m well enough into them, I assure you. Now, that will be it for personal questions about me. If you would all please turn your attention to your copy of the syllabus, there are a few things to clear up.” She waits for the class to follow her instructions and hopes that she’s summoned up enough of her old, more frightening self to get Robin to be quiet.

It seems to work, with “seems” being the key word.

 

***

 

Tharja finds herself in a panic as soon as her foot hits the welcome mat. Peppy music is coming from the family room but she barely hears it over the roaring pulse behind her skull. Her boots come off with a thunk and it takes a few minutes of blank staring before she manages to stoop down and arrange them properly.

When she rises back up to her full height the music has ceased and Nah is standing almost at her elbow, concern in her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Auntie Tharja?” _Auntie Tharja._ The address is a comfort now.

Tharja checks her watch. Nah is the only one home at this time, like usual. Nowi and Tiki have gone out for groceries and Anna is…wherever Anna goes during the day. “We should wait until everyone is home, Nah,” she says, “I’ll tell you everything then.”

Nah nods her understanding and stands aside so that Tharja can get upstairs and get dressed in something more comfortable.

Her room is cool and dark, and the headache that has begun to form begs for her to keep it so. Tharja wastes no time in pulling the first-day-of-class outfit from her body, throwing herself onto her bed with little else on save for her smallclothes— _bra and underwear_.

Robin can’t be any older than eighteen or nineteen. A child. A child in her tutorial, under her tutelage. _Absolutely stunning. Perfect._ Tharja almost slaps herself for that. Robin is a _child._

But not really. Ylissean law recognizes individuals as autonomous adults at the age of eighteen…but Tharja is in a position of authority over Robin, being her TA.

Tharja hears a buzzing noise coming from somewhere on the floor: her phone. She rummages around in her pants pocket and finds the stupid, buzzing thing; Tiki has sent her three messages.

From Tiki – 9:05

_There are a few familiar faces in this class. I think I see Robin._

From Tiki – 10:30

_Tharja, check your phone. Robin is in this class. So is Chrom, and quite a few other Shepherds if I remember these names right._

From Tiki – 12:02

_Your phone is probably on silent. I really hope Robin isn’t in your tutorial…_

Tharja feels her headache growing stronger. Tiki had been right. Her phone had been on silent all morning, meaning all of Tiki’s warnings went to waste. Doesn’t quite explain how she managed to set it to vibrate without noticing, but she’s still working out the kinks that come with owning a cellular telephone—smartphone.

Realistically Tharja knows that Tiki is probably feeling some strange sort of guilt right now, but she won’t be home for another few hours and Tharja just doesn’t have the energy to text her right now. Phones are _really_ hard.

The world is _such_ a bitch.

Tharja puts the stupid electronic device on its charger and trudges over to her closet. She pulls on a pair of drab grey sweatpants and a darker grey t-shirt, not caring how she looks at this point in time. If Nah’s curiosity is piqued by Tharja’s all too casual form of dress, she is wise not to say anything.

“Do you want a snack, Auntie Tharja?”

“No, Nah, thank you.”

“Would you like to watch anything in particular?” asks Nah, coming to join Tharja on the couch. Tharja shakes her head.

“Whatever you were watching is fine.”

Nah shrugs and presses ‘play’. Tharja’s eyes follow the bright characters and smile upon Nah as she mouths along to songs in a language Tharja still doesn't know, but she is so, so tired. So drained. She falls asleep as the music blares again, a new song, and Nah’s sweet voice follows the notes with carefree abandon.

Nah is not a particularly good singer, but the sound lifts Tharja’s spirits all the same.

 

***

 

Nowi wakes her some time later, a soft smile accompanied by the scent of freshly cooked, warm food. “It’s time for dinner, Tharja,” says the manakete. Nowi looks about as old as Tiki did when she first met the Shepherds, but Tharja can still see the childish light in her friend’s eyes. The years have not taken that brightness away from them just yet.

“Thank you Nowi.”

Tharja follows the manakete into the dining room, where everyone else is already seated; Tiki motions to the place beside her, and the dark-haired woman complies.  They say a short prayer from times long past, and the meal begins. Aside from the sound of forks and knives hitting plates, there is nothing.

Anna is the first one to speak.

The redhead’s eyes lift from her plate and she says, “Nah said you were out of sorts when you got home today. What happened?”

Tharja has to appreciate Anna’s forwardness. “A fair number of our comrades are now students in my tutorial.”

“How many is ‘a fair number’?” asks Anna. The manaketes are silent. Tiki stiffens, glancing between Nowi and Tharja with a silent apology in her eyes.

“Seven.” Tharja waits for the question of _who?_ to appear in the conversation, but when it doesn’t she says, as gently as she can, “Today I saw Cordelia, Olivia, Henry, Maribelle, Chrom…Gaius,” she catches the way Nowi and Nah’s hands clasp together, “and Robin.”

Tiki places a hand on her shoulder and sends an apologetic glance at Nowi and Nah. “I am sorry for not letting you know earlier today, but I had hoped I was mistaken.”

“Are they the only ones you’ve seen?” asks Nowi. She hasn’t released her daughter’s hand.

Tharja nods, and the mood over the table turns heavy and contemplative.

Anna is the first to recover, though her eyes dart from face to face around the table as she tries to gauge her companions’ moods. In the end she deems it would be unwise to speak, and she looks down at her plate instead. Tharja appreciates the woman’s consideration. Only two hundred years ago Anna would have said something off-colour in an attempt to create conversation. She has matured, as they all have.

Tharja watches the way Nowi and Nah look at each other. It must be difficult for them to know that Gaius is so close. She opens her mouth to speak, but nobody is looking. Everyone is lost in themselves.

The meal continues in silence and the family disperses after the plates have been cleared and cleaned. For once they all return to their separate rooms immediately, unwilling to meet each other’s eyes. It hurts Tharja to think that it might be her fault: that she might be the reason for  the sadness in the house, but she cannot take back what she has said, nor does she wish to. They would have found out eventually, from Tiki if not from her. She cannot regret anything, and as she lies awake Tharja feels a creeping anticipation in her stomach.

           

Tomorrow she will see Robin again.

           

She almost wishes she wouldn’t.

 


	5. Side Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja struggles to accept the new (old?) face of her reality.

For the first two weeks, Tharja is calm about the entire situation. Robin is a good student, one of the best students she’s ever had bias notwithstanding, and with the exception of Gaius, so are all of the former Shepherds—she really needs to come up with a new name for them, if she’s going to survive this.

Robin often spends time after class just speaking to her, something which both pleases her and freaks her out just a little; not really, of course, as this is _Robin_ , but Tharja remembers the age difference and what society would say about a professor dating a student, and that strengthens her resolve. That, and the way that the other Shepherds, particularly the girls—and _particularly_ tall, slightly intimidating Cordelia—are always present when Robin is.

That aside Tharja thinks that perhaps, if things continue to move along so smoothly, she will have no issues with seeing the rest of this school year through.

The panic sets in on the third week.

She’d almost forgotten about one of the most crucial conditions of Naga’s gift, and surprisingly, it is Anna who reminds her of it one morning. The ex-merchant—though realistically nobody is _quite_ sure what it is that Anna actually does—sits atop the desk in Tharja’s lecture hall, legs swinging as she talks, just as they used to do.

There are ten minutes before noon and Tharja isn’t sure why she doesn’t want Anna to see the Shepherds, but then the redhead speaks; and Tharja simply needs her to stay. “I was just thinking about it last night but…didn’t Naga say something about Robin gaining back memories the longer she was exposed to you?”

Tharja is thankful for the paleness of her skin—though she blanches it barely shows. “…You’re right.”

“Well…,” Anna’s hand reaches up and rubs the back of her own neck; it’s not a trait Tharja can remember her having. The hand comes down quickly enough, and Anna’s smile perks up, “We’ll just have to do something about that when we get there, won’t we?” she says, placing a friendly hand on Tharja’s shoulder just as students begin to trickle in. Tharja looks past the redhead’s winning smile to watch the doorway.

Robin and Cordelia are among the first to appear, with Maribelle and Olivia close behind. _As per usual._ They sit front and centre—a spot they’ve claimed with little opposition from their fellow students—and unpack while shooting quizzical glances at Tharja and Anna. Aside from them, a pair of young men Tharja recognizes as perpetual back-row-sitters makes their way to their chosen spots, waving carelessly in her direction as they slouch their way up the stairs.

“Yes, we will,” says Tharja eventually, turning her attention back to her friend. It’s been far too long a pause for her response to be warranted, but she knows Anna won’t blame her for being a little distracted. The clever woman seems to be at a loss for words as her eyes bounce from familiar face to familiar face.

Anna’s smile transforms into a look of pure sympathy and the redhead hugs her tightly, in the way to which Tharja has slowly grown accustomed.  “See you at home,” she says as she turns to go, hiding her surprise at seeing so many old comrades at once behind an impossibly peppy step.

 Tharja wants to roll her eyes at the dramatic swish of hips that accompanies the redhead’s exit but she doesn’t, instead placing a pile of handouts before the seated girls and pulling the corners of her lips up into a smile. “Hello ladies, please take a handout.” She looks up at the pair of boys and calls out, “You as well, gentlemen.” One of the boys, the one Tharja dislikes less, trudges down the stairs, takes two sheets, and trudges back up.

After shaking their heads at the grumblings of their classmates the girls oblige, though Robin looks at her with a strange expression on her face that Tharja cannot possibly hope to place. A beat later, and the white-haired young woman asks, “Who was that, Tharja?”

“Anna? She’s my…,” Tharja isn’t sure what to say. At this point, her relationship with Anna is somewhere in between friend and family, but the lack of a more precise term is irritating. She turns away for a moment, rummaging in her bag for a bottle of water. Something about this conversation has dried up the walls of her mouth and coated her throat in sandpaper.

When she looks back, the four girls are staring at her with a strange intensity in their eyes, and so she finally says, “We live together.”

 It’s probably the wrong thing to say, from the way Maribelle’s breath seems to get caught in her cheeks, but Tharja can’t very well take it back now.

“Oh,” says Robin, and she seems to tense up, though Tharja cannot imagine why. “I didn’t know you had a…housemate. I mean—not that I…” Robin frowns at herself more than at Tharja. After a moment of silence she says, “She’s very pretty.”

“I have four housemates, actually,” says Tharja, wondering how far she should take this conversation but knowing she should probably stop if she knows what’s good for her. There’s no need to bring Tiki and Nowi into this, and even less need to mention Nah. “And yes, Anna is quite pretty.” Not that Anna’s her type, but it would be senseless to deny the obvious.

“Is she your girlfriend? Because you look good together,” says Robin with her signature cool-girl nonchalance. Her smile looks a little off, but Tharja doesn’t really have an explanation for that. She’s too busy trying to process the question. If she’d been drinking something, she’s sure she would have pulled a full-on spit-take upon hearing it.

Robin’s candidness earns a pair of small gasps from Olivia and Cordelia, and Maribelle leans over the pinkette—not unwillingly, Tharja notices—in order to poke Robin in the ribs. Tharja is unsure how to respond.

After a pause too long to be considered anything but awkward, Cordelia takes control of the conversation, casting an apologetic glance at Tharja. “I’m so very sorry about my friend, Tharja…Robin tends to speak before she thinks much of the time. We hope you won’t think we’re disrespecting you in any way, because we certainly don’t mean to! Right, Robin?”

The look that Robin gives her redheaded friend is something much like a puppy being scolded, and Tharja has to stop herself from cooing at the sight. The white-haired girl nods however, and turns to Tharja with an apology very clearly written on her face. “Cordy—Cordelia is right. I’m sorry, Tharja, for being so nosy. It’s none of my business.”

Tharja feels sorry herself, for how genuinely sad Robin looks. She plasters on a brighter smile than she’s made in recent centuries and shakes her head. “It’s alright. You’re curious. And to answer the question: Anna isn’t my girlfriend. She’s family to me, like all of my housemates.”

This seems to get Robin’s attention, and Tharja can practically see the girl’s next question written all over her face. “But are you interested in women?”

Olivia, clearly embarrassed by the whole thing, is the first to react, slapping a hand over Robin’s mouth and apologizing profusely in Tharja’s general direction. Maribelle begins to grumble under her breath about “completely inappropriate student-teacher questioning” and how she plans to lecture Robin later, and Cordelia just shakes her head at her three friends.

Tharja knows she should probably scold Robin for asking something so personal of her professor, but she doesn’t have the heart to do it.

Henry walks in shortly afterwards and takes in the entire commotion. After a moment where it seems as if he’s deliberating on what he should do next, the smiling boy grabs a handout and seats himself behind Cordelia, snickering to himself. Tharja would be willing to guess that this sort of thing is a regular occurrence in their circle of friends. The original Shepherds were certainly not strangers to the insertion of feet in their mouths.

Tharja looks down at her watch, more as a means of stopping herself from talking than because she cares about the time. More students begin to pour in, and she excuses herself from the four girls at the front. “Good morning everyone, please take a handout before sitting down.” Robin’s eyes, normally so bright and eager for knowledge, avoid hers for the entirety of the lesson.

Tharja doesn’t want to know why that is.

 

***

 

The next day, she’s surprised to see Robin outside of her office. Today is Thursday, and she’s supposed to be setting up for her 9am lecture for HIST 3420, Religions of the Early Continent. The way that Robin looks at her however, well, it’s oddly compelling, and even after more than a millennium of living, Tharja doesn’t quite have the willpower to resist Robin’s pleading eyes.

Against her better judgement, she allows the girl into her office.

“I don’t have much time. Is there a problem, Miss Grimm?”

“Robin,” says the girl with a cheeky smile. “And no…well, I mean, there’s nothing wrong really I just… _I_ have a bit of a problem.”

“Oh?”

The grin on Robin’s face disappears, and she looks at Tharja shyly when she says, “I wanted to apologize for pestering you yesterday. I know that I got way out of hand and I’m very sorry. It was completely inappropriate and won’t happen again, Dr. Noirgan.”

“Tharja,” she says automatically; then catches herself and follows up with, “And it isn’t a problem, though I do appreciate you coming to apologize, and showing me respect in doing so. That was very mature of you, Robin.”

“That’s all…? But…I was blatantly disrespectful,” Robin says, eyes wide with confusion. It’s adorable.

Tharja shakes her head. In her some seventy or so years of teaching at the university, she has come across “blatantly disrespectful”, and yesterday’s questioning, while it stepped over multiple boundaries, was not nearly bad enough to warrant such a description. “It’s quite alright. I know that I look rather young, and that tends to confuse my students. It’s only natural that you would feel at ease to banter with me as you would your peers,” Tharja says, and then she stands and motions for Robin to follow her out, because she has five minutes and her lecture hall is all the way on the other end of the university. “If that’s all, Robin, I really must be going. Have a good day.”

“You too…Tharja,” says Robin, a familiar smile beginning to appear. “See you next week!” She turns and runs in the opposite direction, seeming to remember that she, too, has a class in a few minutes, and Tharja watches the girl run in spite of herself.

It’s only for the next six days, but Tharja can’t help but feel like she’s losing Robin all over again.

 

 

 

The rest of the day is a blur, and when Tharja comes home she is greeted by the sight of Anna lounging about on the couch, no Nah to be found anywhere. A problem at the museum, it seems, though nothing that Nah won’t be able to sort out by herself.

Tharja goes up to change, and when she returns Anna is seated up straight and watching her come down the stairs with an intensity that Tharja has only ever seen on the redhead’s face during money talks. She sits down on the edge of the couch and looks Anna straight in the eyes. “What is it?”

“You’ve been acting weird since yesterday,” says Anna. She’s adjusted to the language of this modern era best, and it shows. “Like, I kind of get it. I mean, seeing those four freaked me out a little too, but you’re on a whole different level, and you see them a lot more than I do so like, you’d think you’d be used to it by now. What happened?”

Tharja sighs. She hadn’t mentioned it because she’d not thought it important, but of course Anna’s freakily observant nature picked up on her relative strangeness. Sometimes Tharja forgets that there’s something…magical about Anna, in an innate way, as if she weren’t entirely human to begin with.

Tharja sighs again before speaking. “Robin asked me who you were, if you were my girlfriend, and if I was even interested in women. And _out loud,_ I might add, in front of Maribelle, Cordelia, and Olivia.”

And those two boys in the back, but they probably didn’t hear anything.

Anna laughs. “Oh wow _._ Never thought our beloved tactician could be so _tactless_ … but, I mean, it’s excusable. She’s young, and the modern world doesn’t teach young people not to be stupid until it’s too late and they have to figure everything out for themselves. What did you say to her?”

 “I said we were housemates, and that we weren’t dating since you’re essentially family.”

The loose curls of Anna’s hair bounce in their ponytail as the redhead nods knowingly. “Ah, but you didn’t answer if you were interested in women, did you?”

“No.”

Anna was silent a moment. “I mean, you are, but like…you’re more Robinsexual than anything else, right? I don’t think I can remember you ever expressing interest in anybody else, and you and I have known each other for a long time.” _A very long time._

Tharja stares blankly at the redhead. Leave it to Anna to coin some stupid term like that. Though it is true that she’s really only interested in Robin, there has to be a better way to say so than _Robinsexual._ “I didn’t think I needed to answer such a question from a student of mine.”

Anna nods again. “And you didn’t. Don’t. But let’s leave all that alone for now, and focus on a very real problem that you may soon find yourself having to deal with.” Anna is all seriousness now, and in spite of herself Tharja marvels at how miraculously different the Secret Seller can be when she really puts her mind to it. “So first off, did Naga mention exactly _how_ this whole memory transfer is supposed to go down?”

“Go down what?” It takes her a minute to recognize the slang, but Tharja is quick to recover with, “The memories will start coming to her if she spends time with me, and considering how she has to spend an hour with me every week, they _will_ start to show up. Probably sooner, rather than later.”

Anna clicks her tongue but says nothing, eyes drifting from one space on the wall to another, as they do when she’s lost in thought. Tharja can’t blame her. It’s a tricky situation, no matter what angle they try to approach it from.

Throughout the last forty-seven cycles of Robin’s existence, Tharja has amassed libraries upon libraries of memories that they’ve shared, in addition to her own recollections. Naga’s gift—it would be unfair to call it a curse, she now realizes—posits that Robin will have to share in the memories—it is part of why Tharja has so far had such difficulty in keeping Robin with her.

Sometimes the memories overwhelm her dear Robin in the literal sense, and Tharja has watched the woman she loves lose her mind over something over which neither of them has any control. Other times, the memories only scare Robin away, but Tharja can still feel the sting of rejection just thinking on those times.

“Is there absolutely no way to block Robin from regaining these memories?” Anna asks, and she frowns when Tharja indicates that there isn’t any such way to do that. “Maybe Tiki might be able to figure out a way around her mother’s gift?”

Tharja smiles thinly. “We tried, in the beginning, but there is nothing that anyone can do. The memories will find Robin so long as she is in contact with me, and I can’t bring myself to tell Tiki to find another TA for the class. That wouldn’t be right; I signed on to teach it.”

“Yes,” says Anna, and she takes Tharja’s hand. Tharja is sure the redhead must be thinking about how cold her hand is, but she’s glad that Anna doesn’t mention it. “Well, whatever happens, we’re here for you, Tharja. I’m only sorry I can’t do anything more to help you.”

“Thank you, Anna,” she says, and she allows herself to hug the other woman first this time, perhaps for the first time in all of Anna’s history as a member of this strange little family. It warms Tharja’s heart to know that this woman, whom she had never had the time of day for as a Shepherd—in spite of Anna’s closeness to Robin—has become so valuable to her. If only she had known then what she knows now, maybe things would have been different.

She doesn’t know quite how, but she’s sure something would have been better.

In the back of her mind, Tharja wonders if it might have been _her_ fault that she lost Robin. What if it was her own lack of closeness with her fellow Shepherds that doomed her wife, her coldness that set Robin up for a fall in performing her last heroic deed? She can’t be sure of anything pertaining to those dark times now, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Tharja excuses herself from Anna’s presence and loses her stomach in the sink.

It will be difficult to look Robin in the eyes when they next meet, and the poor girl won’t even know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, all! I'm sorry I just seem to be dumping a ton of chapters left and right, but there's still quite a bit to go before this is caught up with the versions on fanfiction.net and Tumblr.


	6. The Return of Wanting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja wants, and Tharja needs, and Tharja...recognizes that she isn't the _best_ match out there for Robin.

It takes her the rest of the week to pull herself out of her slump and when she eventually does, Tharja comes face to face with yet another upsetting situation. The fourth week of classes is one that she has been dreading since the beginning of the school year.

After much deliberation Tiki has decided on the topics for the first term paper, and has given detailed instructions as to what the students are required to do, and what they are allowed to write about. Tharja is almost as displeased as she can imagine her students will be: the first papers are always the worst. Still, it is her job to teach as Tiki has asked her to teach, and she makes a neat stack of the topic sheets on her desk before the class begins.

The tell-tale groans of the students who walk in are to be expected. In her experience, it is always a rare student who enjoys writing a history paper, and a rarer student still who does not grumble and complain at least a little bit when the assignment is being explained for the first time.

Defying all normative expectations—but satisfying Tharja with the Robin-ness of it all—Robin smiles when she looks over the topics provided, and begins to chat animatedly with Cordelia about what areas of discussion she might want to cover. It’s rather adorable, watching the way her eyes light up and her hands fly all about her in the air as she speaks, and Tharja is upset that she can’t just stand there watching Robin all day.

If she could she would, but she’s a professor, a _teacher_ , and she can’t just stand around and gawk at this beautiful girl who is-but-isn’t her wife. _And Robin is only nineteen._

“Does anybody have any questions?”

“So is this supposed to be nine pages on both sides or nine pages on one side only?” Gaius asks around the lollipop in his mouth. So very like him.

“Nine pages single-sided, Gaius,” she says. “And I’m not marking anything past that ninth page, so don’t bother trying to get extra credit that way.” His relieved smile is so familiar it hurts; it would absolutely kill Nowi to see it.

A young man in the back raises his hand next, and while Tharja answers his rather long-winded question about the specifications of font, margins, and citation style, she gets the warm feeling all over her body that can only mean that Robin is staring at her again. She braces herself for what she’s sure will happen next but instead of Robin, it is Maribelle who raises her hand, a question sitting primly on her pursed lips.

“Yes, Maribelle?”

The blonde shoots Robin a glance, shaking her head slightly at the pink flush on the white-haired girl’s neck and face. Tharja rolls up her sleeves reflexively; it must be warmer than she thought in here. At the very least, it’s warmer than Maribelle’s voice. “In regards to the second topic, would we be allowed to write about _any_ social customs or practices of the time period?”

Tharja nods. “Yes, anything for which you can provide credible sources is acceptable.”

“So, for example, if I were to wish to write a paper on the courtship practices of Ylisse or Plegia during the time, this would be an acceptable topic assuming I provide relevant and verifiable research?” Maribelle’s face is almost as pink as her dress—how she’s wearing a dress in such dreary fall weather is beyond Tharja, but that’s irrelevant.

“That would be fine, yes,” Tharja says, not missing the pointed look that Maribelle sends Robin’s way. The look changes to one of pleasure when Olivia hugs Maribelle’s side and whispers something unintelligible in the blonde’s ear, but Tharja is called to attention by another student and doesn’t have much time to give the interaction any more thought other than wondering if the two were that close when she first knew them.

Tharja addresses a few more questions, checks her watch, and declares that the class is over prematurely as there is little more to discuss, and she can see more than one set of fidgety hands being placed on fully packed backpack straps.

“You have almost two months to do this paper but please, try to give it a little thought,” she says, and waves the class away with a flick of her wrists. Most of her students are up and halfway out the room before she’s even turned away.

It kind of hurts her feelings, but then again, she doesn’t much care for most of her students.

“See ya, Tharja,” says Gaius as he passes her by. Chrom repeats his boyfriend’s words—Tharja still can’t get over it: _they’re boyfriends_ —and leaves. Henry saunters out next, calling over his shoulder for the girls to meet them in the parking lot

From the looks of things nobody is in much of a rush, and Tharja envies the relatively carefree lives of these modern Ylissean teens. _She_ had certainly never been allowed such freedom.

Tharja pulls herself out of that area of thought—the _“no-place”_ as Nowi has taken to calling it—and looks about her; the four girls are whispering amongst themselves and she should probably be putting her things away. There are a few extra topic sheets on her desk. A barely concealed sigh escapes her when she realizes she’ll need to hold onto them. Tiki always gives out exact pages.

“Tharja?” Her head snaps up, perhaps a bit too quickly, but Tharja forces herself to be calm. “I had a question…about the paper,” says Robin. _Surprising._ Tharja had never thought Robin would be the type to be shy about getting clarification on an assignment.

“Yes, what is it, Robin?” Tharja is aware of how Robin’s friends watch the conversation with barely veiled interest, and she wonders if they have always been so poor at concealing their rather obvious behaviour; she can’t remember.

Robin clears her throat and scowls at her friends, motioning for them to move faster and pay less attention to her conversation, and suddenly there’s a droning of sound as Cordelia and Maribelle begin to mutter furiously about where they’ll all be going for dinner.

The white-haired girl shakes her head and casts Tharja a small glance, clearing her throat as if to speak. The top zipper on her backpack catches, but Robin manages to force out her words even as she wrestles with the tiny metal piece. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me refine the topic I wanted to write about for my paper but…but—

“But we have a previous engagement this afternoon,” Cordelia offers, shaking her head at her friend’s hesitancy. Maribelle’s cheeks puff up a bit at being so _rudely_ cut off from whatever she was saying, but she says nothing outside of a posh “ _Honestly, Cordelia_ ”. Tharja is surprised, but merely nods at the tall redhead before turning her attention back to Robin.

“Yes, right,” says the girl, still tugging on the backpack zipper. “So I was wondering if I would be able to stop by during your office hours to speak with you, sometime soon, if that’s okay?”

“Yes, that should be fine,” says Tharja, hiding the sparkle in her eyes behind her long, dark hair. She’s thankful she’s never listened to Tiki about getting rid of her bangs. “Just send me an email to let me know when you would like to meet with me; I do tend to get students dropping in unannounced but appointments are preferable, as there are quite a few of you to deal with,” she says, hopefully not unkindly.

Robin smiles and stands, having finally finished grappling with her backpack’s zipper. “I’ll send you an email when I get home.”

Realizing that there are still three other people in the room, Tharja adds, “And the same goes for you as well, ladies. Don’t feel as if you can’t come to me for assistance. I am here to help you.”

“Thank you, Tharja,” says Cordelia, and she whisks out of the room with her long legs and her flames of hair and Tharja thinks back to the days when she was glad to see Cordelia leave.

Now she is saddened, and for more reason than that Robin follows closely on the redhead’s heels. Next is Olivia, who takes Maribelle’s hand as she walks out, pink hair swishing behind her, strikingly pale in comparison to the bolder pink of Maribelle’s dress. Once again Tharja finds she is alone, having watched the Shepherds leave her behind.

Again.

She doesn’t know what it is about today, but she needs a drink.

 

***

 

It isn’t until the weekend that she finally gets her damned drink, and even then it’s not exactly what she’d had in mind. Saturday evening is normally a time for their small family to go out and bond over some new amusement, but this particular evening finds Tharja and Tiki out alone, as they once used to be.

Nah is busy charting out a new layout for an entire wing of the museum. Anna and Nowi have elected to stay home to help, leaving Tiki and Tharja to go to some boring, high society function thrown by one of their obnoxious colleagues. Though she attempts to pass it off as something she’s been looking forward to, the tired look in the eldest dragonkin’s eyes suggests that Tiki has somehow been strong-armed into attending. Tharja isn’t quite sure how the woman managed to convince _her_ to be present, but she doesn’t really care. If it will calm Tiki somewhat to have her there she’ll go, and gladly.

Sure, it isn’t the ideal place to drink away her latest wave of angst, but at least the ambience is nice; the alcohol is classy and, more importantly, free.

“Why are we here?”

Tiki eyes the glass in Tharja’s hand—it _definitely_ isn’t her fourth within the hour—and shakes her head. “You remember the head of the linguistics department? His daughter is a budding new musician, and this event is to showcase her talents. He’s invited quite a bit of the faculty, quite possibly just to brag about the poor child.” She pauses, then leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “I’m in dire need of a nap.”

“When aren’t you?” She tries to pass if off as a joke but Tharja has seen the faint, bruise-like bags beginning to form under Tiki’s eyes.

The green-haired woman laughs gently, “That’s a good question.”

There is a companionable silence as the two ladies circulate the room slowly, exchanging mindless small talk with familiar faces. “I suppose, no matter what time period, parents are continually trying to show their children off, embarrassing them in the process,” Tharja says glibly, after speaking with the head of Linguistics himself.

“Certainly not _all_ parents,” Tiki says. “Some could not have any less to do with their children.” If it were anyone else, Tharja would think the tone snide. Coming from Tiki, it sounds more contemplative than anything else, if perhaps laced with a certain sense of…well, it’s difficult to place.

The rational part of Tharja—the same rational part of her that she’s been forced to nurture over the unending years—knows that her friend—though the word is not strong enough to describe her bond with Tiki—hadn’t meant to direct the words towards her, but she is reminded of how she abandoned her children all the same. _She_ hadn’t bothered to delight in them very much, only when Robin had been…present. Those had been the best days and…to think on it stings, so she downs her wine faster than most people would consider polite, swapping it with a full glass off a passing server’s tray. _I hate red._

The first sip is earthy and heavy and the powerful scent screws her lips into a tight line of disapproval, but she continues to drink it anyway. She does her best not to actually look into the glass.

Tiki notices it all, shrewd green eyes never once leaving Tharja’s, and the dark-haired woman curses her lack of self-control. “Tharja, you must know I did not mean to offend you,” says Tiki softly, taking Tharja’s free hand in her own to give it a gentle, companionate squeeze. Tharja returns the gesture, forcing herself to sip slowly from the glass in her hand. It wouldn’t do to embarrass herself and Tiki; most of the university’s history department is present, as well as the literature and music departments. And the dean.

Tharja greatly dislikes the dean, but that must be the wine talking because she’d never think something like that in a place where the thought might turn into damning words.

“I’m fine,” she says instead, focusing on Tiki. She knows that in spite of the terseness of her voice, Tiki understands. The dragonkin squeezes her hand again and Tharja presses slightly closer to the other woman as an additional sign of forgiveness. She knows that the once-Voice of Naga is fond of physical affection, which, though again this might be the wine talking, is perfectly okay. Tiki’s uncovered arm feels so much warmer than hers. She relaxes, finally, secretly glad that they’ve stopped moving about so much.

 

And that’s precisely when the universe reminds Tharja of how easily her sense of calm can go to shit.

 

“Professor Sairi? Tha—Dr. Noirgan?” Tharja is slow to turn, more due to the influence of four and a half glasses of wine than the dread of realizing who has addressed her.

Cordelia and Robin look stunning standing there clad in impeccably fitted dresses— _don’t think that_. Robin’s hair is done differently than usual, a half-up, half-down style that Tharja can’t quite place; it’s familiar. Her eyes follow the braided crown pulling hair away from Robin’s face, the pattern standing out against the loose waves of white that have been positioned oh-so carefully over her shoulders and, Tharja imagines, cascading down Robin’s back.

Tharja isn’t sure when she lost her ability to pretend not to care, but it’s fairly apparent that she’s lost it, if the rapid beating of her heart is any indication.

Luckily, she isn’t alone. Tiki’s hand releases Tharja’s, moving up to settle on the paler woman’s arm, and the dragonkin laughs gently, smiling brightly at her students. “Good evening Cordelia, good evening Robin, lovely to see you outside of class.”

“It is, yes,” says Cordelia, stepping slightly in front of Robin in a protective stance. The move is strangely out of sync with the warm joviality in her voice; Cordelia, or at least, this Cordelia, is rather adept at masking her emotions. Tharja is almost jealous, but how can she be when Robin deserves somebody brilliant and strong and perfect and _her own age,_ like Cordelia, and not a damned old woman in a young woman’s body.

Not that she’s received any confirmation as to the nature of their relationship. She’s just guessing, of course. Tharja has always been a rather good guesser…a side effect of years of cursing and hex work.

But that’s neither here nor there. “Wonderful,” she says, trying as best as she can to sound sincere. She’s thankful in a way; if _her_ Robin were here, she would have certainly seen through the flimsy attempt at normalcy. The worst that this Robin will think of her is that she doesn’t want to see her students outside of class.

It’s only then that Tharja realizes that Robin’s eyes, instead of being focused on her or even on Cordelia, are constantly shifting back to Tiki.

Tharja’s own eyes fall on Tiki, who looks lovelier than usual. Particular focus is drawn to the way that the dragonkin clings to her arm. She doesn’t really want to know Tiki’s intentions for behaving this way, but _why, Naga,_ why is this happening? It’s all too much for her to take in.

Tharja rushes to think up some excuse, some way to discredit what appears to be the case. The look in Cordelia’s eyes suggests that suspicions have already formed. Tharja shakes her head slightly.

“I do hope I’m not overstepping my boundaries as a student, but…are the two of you here together?” Tharja almost misses the inflection on the word “together”, but Tiki certainly does not. The playful wink she shoots in Tharja’s direction is a warning if the once-sorceress has ever seen one. _Let me handle this_ , it says, and Tharja is too drunk to agree or disagree.

Tiki says “Yes” at the same time as Tharja manages an almost inaudible “It isn’t like that” and the expressions on Robin’s face flicker past so quickly that Tharja doesn’t have time to register anything except for the wall that has appeared around Robin’s eyes. She has never seen this look. Not once.

Apparently Cordelia has, if the sudden shift in attitude is anything to go by. “Ah…We’re so sorry to disturb you, in that case. It must be terribly awkward, bumping into students at a function such as this. We’ll be out of your hair. See you on Wednesday, Professor Sairi. Doctor Noirgan.”  She wraps a long arm around Robin’s waist as Tiki assures them that it was lovely to see them, and yes, they’ll see each other then.

The motion is so smooth, so very familiar that it hurts Tharja to watch. Instinctively, though she knows this is _not_ how she should be interacting with her students, or with the woman she claims is not with her “like that”, she leans into Tiki, who obliges by almost draping herself over Tharja—in a classy, very Tiki-like way that doesn’t look at all out of place in their fancy setting, of course. Robin mutters something noncommittal and folds into Cordelia further, and Tharja is almost too incensed by the sight to return the pleasantries.

Tiki giggles lowly, and Tharja is reminded that Naga’s daughter is less mature than her age would imply. _At least one of us is enjoying this._ Tharja resists the urge to shake her head and trains her eyes on Cordelia and Robin.

The pair looks…well-suited: Cordelia, the tall, protective partner to Robin’s quieter, less overtly intimidating presence. Tharja has to fight to keep from tipping the contents of her glass down the front of the redhead’s (obviously) expensive dress as she sweeps forward, bringing Robin with her.

The pressure of Tiki’s weight is gone, replaced with the light touch of Tiki’s hands, and the whisper of Tiki’s breath in her ear. An apology. Tharja backs away slightly, shaking her head. It is not the dragonkin’s fault. The situation would have been out-of-hand regardless, and, as Tharja reminds her friend, she too has played a part.

The program announcers calls for seats to be filled, and there is little time for reassurances.

To her chagrin they are seated near Cordelia and Robin, who she learns are guests of Cordelia’s mother: the “finest instructor of music” with whom the head of Linguistics has trusted his daughter’s immense talents. Tharja does not know what cruel god has decided to place them so close to each other, but she does not care. She does her best to protect Robin from her covetous gaze, and squeezes Tiki’s offered hand as a way to keep herself in check.

 

 

 

The feeling of wanting sits heavily on her chest.

 


	7. Uncertainty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which new realizations collide with the old, and Tharja feels herself beginning to crumble.

If Tharja had been unsure of the nature of Cordelia and Robin’s relationship on the night of the recital, she is sure of it on the following Tuesday, when Robin comes to her office. Tharja isn’t all that surprised when she sees Cordelia standing with the white-haired girl, nor is she surprised when it becomes clear that the redhead is going to be sitting outside her office until Robin is finished.

Something in the way that Cordelia looks at her tells Tharja that she is suspected of something…detestable; specifically, lusting over a nineteen year old who may-or-may-not be (but most likely _is_ ) in a relationship with Cordelia herself. Tharja can’t say she blames the girl. She knows that she has almost perfected the arts of subtlety, but something about Robin has always been able to disarm her. Cordelia, sharp as she has been throughout all the many times Tharja has seen her, would have been quick to notice Tharja’s behaviour.

As she watches the way Cordelia’s protective hovering sharpens at her approach, the dark-haired woman has a thought. Perhaps she can assuage the redhead’s fears. Yes, it is difficult to lose Robin again, but Tharja knows Cordelia—in a way—and Robin is bound to be happy if Cordelia is the woman in her life. Though it is an immature thought—at least for a being almost one thousand years old, if not more—Tharja concedes defeat to a worthy opponent.

Robin’s happiness outweighs Tharja’s own, as it always has.

“Cordelia, please, join us. The chairs in my office are much better suited to waiting than the ones out here.”

The redhead blinks back her surprise and looks at Robin, as if for permission, and the white-haired girl shakes her head slightly in response. Tharja cannot discern any meaning behind their meaningful shared glances, but when Cordelia accepts her offer she thinks that she sees a hint of frustration on Robin’s face. “Very kind of you, Tharja,” says Cordelia, the cold stiffness from the night of the recital gone away in favour of the same warm, yet impersonal tone that she has become accustomed to hearing from the reincarnated Pegasus Knight. “I hope you won’t mind it. Is it okay if I use my phone? I don’t really think I need help with the essay but I wouldn’t want to bother either of you while you’re working with Robin’s topic.”

“You’re a responsible young woman,” she says. “I don’t think you being on your phone will be a problem.” _Damn modernity._ At least that means that she won’t be placing Tharja under too intense of a scrutinizing gaze. Hopefully. She turns to open the door, feeling the familiar tingling that signals Robin’s eyes on her.

Tharja allows the girls a chance to get comfortable in the chairs across from her desk. When they have settled, and Robin has pulled out a pen and a spiralled notebook, she clears her throat. “So, Robin, you said you needed help with refining your topic, yes?”

Robin nods, strangely timid. “Yes.”

“What did you have in mind?” asks Tharja, doing her best to focus on Robin while occasionally glancing at Cordelia, to acknowledge the redhead’s presence. The tall girl is indeed on her phone, as it were, but from what Tharja can briefly make out she appears to be writing something rather long. Not a message, then. It kind of looks like a document, but Tharja is far removed from the thralls of simple curiosity. Cordelia’s quiet typing is of no concern to her at the moment.

Apparently she is the only one who feels that way. Robin looks at Cordelia, irate about something that Tharja cannot hope to guess at, and keeps her gaze steady until the other responds. The redhead merely lifts a fine eyebrow, eyes flicking over to Tharja, before turning back to her phone. Robin sighs.

Tharja feels distinctly uncomfortable. “Robin?”

“Well, I was looking to discuss the courtship rituals of Ylisse and Plegia, perhaps to do a compare and contrast of some kind.”

Tharja remembers being asked about the topic, and the next words out of her mouth are, “Wasn’t Maribelle going to write about that?”

Robin flushes a warm pink that colours from her neck to the tips of her ears. Cordelia sighs when she notices it, but Tharja is confused. The colour seems to drain just a little when Robin says, “Yes, well, she decided not to, but I thought it was interesting.”

Noting the way that Robin’s hand tightens on her pen, Tharja simply nods. “That’s perfectly fine. Now then, how do you think we can refine that further?”

“I wrote down a few ideas…” Robin chews on the tip of her pen, opening her notebook with a shaking hand, and Tharja pities her. She seems so very out of touch with herself; her usual pithy wit is gone and replaced by this puzzling timidity that Tharja has never seen in Robin before. It breaks her heart just a little further.

 _Noire._ That’s who Robin reminds her of in this moment. Tharja allows herself a brief second  of mourning for the daughters she never really knew before placing her attention back on the woman who’d made her think of them in the first place.

Tharja wishes that she could take the pen from Robin’s lips, could hold the pale, quivering hands in her own, and console the girl with her words, with her touch. She is reminded of _her_ Robin, of the way her wife had looked on the night before Grima’s demise. Not all the elements are the same, but the essence of that night exists in this moment, even with Cordelia’s presence in the background.

The pen Robin clenches between her teeth is not a feathered quill; the clothes are not Robin’s breeches and familiar Plegian cloak hidden under gleaming Ylissean silver; the face that looks back at Tharja, while the same on the surface, is not a precise match for the war-drained, loving eyes and determined set of mouth that will forever be burned into Tharja’s memory, and yet…and yet…

Cordelia’s presence grounds her in the reality of the situation. This is Robin born anew, oh-so-many times over, and she does not know Tharja to be more than what she acts as: a teacher. She leans over the paper that Robin pushes her way and smiles. Even the way that Robin writes is achingly familiar.

“Right, well,” she begins, noting how close the girl’s face seems to be to hers. Robin’s breath reminds her of apples, and the familiarity is comforting. Tharja struggles to keep a blush from rising to her own pale face. “Let’s see what we have here…”

 

***

 

It takes about an hour all in all, and for once Tharja is glad that she doesn’t actually teach a class on the day she opens her office to her students.  By the end of it, Robin is much less shy and much more open to discussing possible ways in which she can go about writing her paper. Even Cordelia seems pleased with the hour’s events, and she nods her head respectfully at Tharja when they part at the door of her office.

The once-sorceress no longer feels intense excitement, but the prospect of reading Robin’s paper is a pleasant one: something to look forward to in the never-ending monotony of her life. If Robin writes anything like how she used to, Tharja is sure of _at least_ three good papers this time around (she can’t forget the ever-perfect Cordelia and the prim, precise Maribelle in that count). Tharja smiles to herself at the thought.

 And then she looks back on what she knows about the Shepherds now and realizes that she has forgotten the way they were.

Everything that she thinks she knows has fallen into question, and Tharja is unsure of what to make of her memories. The long, long years have all blended together and she has no clue where to start if she wants to sift through it all to the very beginning. It is not, she now realizes, a task that she can do alone.

A hand touches her arm and when she turns, Nowi is standing by her side. “Tharja? How did the meeting with Robin go?”

She resists the urge to sigh. “It went well.”

Nowi, whose once-rounded face has angled slightly, like Tiki’s, only holds onto Tharja’s arm with a soft hand. “Tharja…” The earnestness of Nowi’s voice has not left her yet, and Tharja forces herself to look into her dear friend’s eyes. Nowi is not much shorter than her anymore, and now, more than ever before, Tharja recognizes the wisdom of age that lives in Nowi’s gaze.

“It was fine, really. I just…have a lot to think about.”

“Then talk to me about it!” The jubilance in Nowi’s voice has not left her either, and Tharja is glad to have such a joyful person in her life. “You and I have spent…a long time together, Tharja. You should know by now that I want to help you with whatever bothers you. We all do,” says Nowi, managing to keep a friendly smile on her face as they pass by students and colleagues alike. “What’s wrong?”

Tharja smiles for Nowi but does not mention exactly what it is that has brought her to this point. Instead, she catches a glimpse of fiery hair ahead of her in the halls, and mouths “At home” to Nowi, who has yet to look ahead of her. Nudging the shorter woman gently, Tharja braces herself for the surprised gasp that escapes. It has been about a month, if not a little more, but Nowi herself has never seen Cordelia and Robin, or any of the other Shepherds, for that matter.

“Is that…?”

Tharja nods and clears her throat just as Cordelia turns around. The smile she’d been giving Robin fades slightly as she looks at Tharja and Nowi, the latter of whom still has a gentle hand on Tharja’s arm. Robin stops laughing at whatever she’d said to look at them as well, and Tharja still can’t read the expression on Robin’s face, much to her irritation. She _does_ catch the way that Robin looks at Nowi, and at the attention the white-haired girl gives to the hand Nowi has on her arm.

Yet again Tharja curses the affectionate nature of the dragonkin whom she knows now as her family, but Cordelia is already suspicious of her and nothing she could possibly say would help matters. She still tries. “Have either of you met Doctor Guire? She runs the third tutorial for the class you have with Professor Sairi.”

Ever the polite young woman, Cordelia offers Nowi a hand to shake. “This would be the first time we’ve had the pleasure. I’m Cordelia Faulkner and this is Robin Grimm. How are you, Doctor Guire?”

“Well enough, thank you,” says Nowi, impressing Tharja with the sudden weight in her voice and manners. She seems so very…adult.

When the green-haired woman shakes hands with Robin, however, Tharja can see the edges of Nowi’s mask beginning to crack. She’s pretty sure that Nowi had been a very big fan of her wife in the days long past. It had helped that Tharja had actually enjoyed having her around their tent, of course, and Tharja wonders, not for the first time, what might have been had she actually _tried_ to be friends with Cordelia.

 “Nice to meet you, ladies, but please, call me Nowi; all the students do. Now…hm. Cordelia and Robin…yes, I’ve heard about you. Tharja tells me that you’re two of her best students, and Tiki is always impressed with your participation in class.”

Tharja’s eyes snap over to Nowi just as Robin’s do—not that they’d been awkwardly avoiding each other’s eyes during Cordelia and Nowi’s exchange—and they both mouth “Really?”, much to Nowi’s amusement. The shortest of the four tilts her head back slightly and laughs, in a way that she _must_ have picked up from Tiki. “Yes, it’s true. You’re practically the only thing the two of them talk about at home. I hope you won’t ever give up such lovely work ethics.”

Robin nods and makes a stiff jerky motion that Tharja can only assume must have been meant to be a bow; and Cordelia sighs before nodding herself.  If they’d noticed the way Nowi had said “at home”, neither of them shows it. “Of course, ma’am—ah, Nowi.” A loud pinging sound comes from Cordelia’s bag, and without looking at it Cordelia sighs again. “That would be Maribelle. It was lovely to meet you, Doc—Nowi, but we really must be going. See you tomorrow, Tharja.”

Nowi smiles and waves goodbye, subtly squeezing her sharp little nails into Tharja’s arm. Her calm façade lasts about as long as it takes for Cordelia’s flames of hair to be lost in the crowd, and when Tharja is sure she can’t see them anymore she turns to Nowi and sees comprehension dawning in the familiar violet eyes.

“I think I know what you want to talk about. Let’s go home.” There’s a pain in the dragonkin’s eyes when she says it, a lonely longing that Tharja herself has long struggled to control. Not for the first time, she is reminded that she was not the only one to suffer loss after her wife’s passing.

Keeping that in mind, Tharja doesn’t even complain about the forcefulness with which Nowi takes her hand and drags her towards the staff parking lot.

 

***

 

She finds it easier than she’d thought it would be to confess all of her sad, strange feelings to Nowi. The woman—she can no longer be called a girl—is a good listener, even though she cries as Tharja attempts to explain her thoughts. She’s never been particularly good at emotions, something that Robin had tried to work on with her for the sake of their daughter and son. She hadn’t managed to make much practice before…Tharja looks at Nowi, who waits for her next words patiently, and holds herself back from the “no place”.

“I just feel like I don’t know what was real anymore, Nowi. As if knowing them now should feel different from how it was, knowing them _then…_ only I don’t know what was real and what I’m just coming up with in my head. And I can’t even hex myself to clear up my confusion.”

When Tharja has finished speaking and passes the onus of responsibility for the conversation onto Nowi, she is shocked at how much the woman has truly grown over the years. “I can’t say I know precisely how you feel,” Nowi begins cautiously, “but…I think might have some sort of uh, understanding.”

“Anything you might think is just as close to an understanding as what’s going on in my head right now.” Tharja waits for Nowi to speak again, cursing the fact that she can no longer just whip up a curse to chase such pesky feelings away.

Nowi clears her throat and eyes Tharja seriously, and the once-sorceress gets the feeling that her not-so-little-anymore friend is trying to think of a way to say something potentially cutting without hurting her feelings. What Nowi comes up with eventually is, “It sounds like you regret not getting to know your fellow Shepherds…you know, back then.”

Tharja nods slowly. That’s what she’d thought, but Tharja remembers her mother’s teachings all too well still; rule number one to being a successful dark mage: regret _nothing_. Such lessons are difficult to let go of, no matter how wrong they might be, and Tharja knows that it will be some time yet before she is fully able to change.

Still, she’s making progress in admitting that yes, she does regret not being friendlier with the Shepherds. She says as much to the woman beside her on the couch. Nowi watches her carefully before saying, “It’s because you…blame yourself. For what happened to Robin. Isn’t it?”

Tharja stiffens. “How could you have possibly…” and here she’d thought that she was doing a good job of hiding her fears, her regrets. Nowi’s hand takes one of her own cold ones and squeezes, and Tharja feels a bit of her remorse being chased away.

 

 

“Tharja, it wasn’t your fault.”

 

 

“But Naga told us that if our bonds were strong enough, she would come back to m—to us. You _know_ that Robin took the time to talk to everyone, and I mean _everyone_ , and we all loved her. So _why_ was she taken from m—from us—unless _I_ ruined everything?”

Nowi’s eyes widen. She looks almost as young as she had when they’d first met, and Tharja doesn’t know what’s wrong with her emotions because she bursts into tears at the sight. The dragonkin is quick to wrap strong, small arms around Tharja, holding the dark-haired woman upright as she cries. It feels as if their roles in life have reversed.

Tharja hears the ugly sound of her own sobs and it only bothers her more, even as Nowi rubs soothing circles on her back.

“How could it possibly have been your fault, Tharja? Yes, you and Robin were married and closer even than her and Chrom, and _maybe_ your…prickly nature might have rubbed some of her friends the wrong way, but at the end of the day, we were all a family! All the Shepherds, even Walhart and Gangrel…well, maybe not them, but they tried! Those bonds were stronger than Grima, I know it! We all looked out for each other like…like how we do here, how we’ve done for almost two thousand years.”

“Not exactly like how we’ve done,” says Tharja, more sharply than she’d meant to. “Sorry. I just meant…I didn’t love them the way I love all of you.”

The serenity on Nowi’s face is eerily Tiki-like. “That’s understandable. Grima was a nightmare to face, but not even the Dragon God of Destruction could compare to endless centuries of nothing but watching everybody around us die. We had to come to love each other eventually,” says Nowi in reply, “Though I’ve always loved you anyway. Ever since I found out you weren’t the freaky witch Gregor used to say you were.”

“He said that?” Tharja wonders if she could curse a nearly two thousand years dead corpse, but relinquishes the thought as soon as it’s come. Instead she just looks at Nowi; Tharja feels a dry smile forming on her own lips. “When did you get so much more mature than me?”

Nowi laughs and it sounds nice and familiar and _that_ , at least, Tharja does remember. No matter how old she becomes, Nowi’s laugh is unmistakeably light and child-like. “I’ve always been more mature than you, Tharja.”

She scoffs at the words but allows herself to stay curled up in Nowi’s arms, like a child.

“What am I going to do about all of this?”

Tharja feels Nowi’s hug tighten just a little as the dragonkin says, “I don’t know, really…but whatever happens, I’m here for you. We’re here. And no matter what we were then, it won’t stop us from being what we are now. Just…let our past go.”

“I can’t just forget it.”

“And you don’t have to, but don’t you ever listen to Tiki? When you think of the past, think only of the good that you can remember, and use it to push you forward. It’s all we can do anyway, right?”

Tharja thinks that it’s a little frightening, how reasonable Nowi has become. She’s almost completely different from the woman-child she’d been when Tharja had first been brought to the Shepherds’ barracks.

Then again, if she hadn’t grown up, Nowi wouldn’t have been able to comfort her in this way, Tharja realizes. It makes her wonder what this means for her, and for Robin. With a new resolve not to tether herself to their past, Tharja feels freer, yes, but also adrift in the worst possible way.

 

 

 

She doesn’t know where to go from here.


	8. Questionable Behaviour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which she knows why _she_ acts so strangely, but Tharja has no explanation for the actions of the new Shepherds.

The next day, Robin seems to be back to her old self. If anything she seems somehow more upbeat than normal…almost like their Morgans. Tharja has to pause to spare a fond smile for the memory of her sons. _Our sons._ At that moment, Robin decides to look up from her laptop, and the smile in her voice as she greets Tharja is possibly the _cutest_ thing Tharja has ever seen. It reminds her so much of her boys’ smiles…

She pulls herself out of the “no place” just in time to catch the white-haired girl’s first question of the day: “So Tharja…do you live with Doctor Guire _and_ Professor Sairi _and_ Miss Anna?”

Something in the tone of Robin’s voice suggests that “live with” is the most family-friendly version of what she’s thinking is going on in Tharja’s house. Tharja resists the urge to spit out her coffee as Maribelle’s horrified gasp of “Shamelessly invasive, Robin!” sounds in her ears. It _is_ a rather shameless question, but at this point Tharja has gotten accustomed to the four girls in front of her asking her things of a similar nature. They all—with the obvious exception of Robin—definitely know more about her now than they had…before…and in turn she knows more about all of them.

She thanks Naga that she finally seems to have a handle on this whole texting thing as she sends Tiki a quick message asking her how she’s supposed to handle this kind of inquiry. Literally _nobody_ else had ever thought to question her relationships with Tiki and Nowi; though admittedly, none of their other students had ever seen such affectionate scenes as Tiki and Nowi had provided for Cordelia and Robin, who have, without a doubt, relayed the information on to Maribelle and Olivia.

Robin’s gaze is expectant, her eyes strangely bright, and Tharja has to hold back a little shiver of joy at seeing how animated the girl looks. It is such a very pleasant, heartening change from Robin’s behaviour only yesterday.

Tharja envies these modern Ylisseans their emotional flightiness.

The “no place” calls her back again, but she bats it away with a flip of her bangs as she excuses herself to check Tiki’s email—no, _text_. She still gets confused sometimes.

 

From Tiki – 11:53

_Where are you?_

 

To Tiki – 11:54

_In my classroom._

 

From Tiki – 11:55

 _I was wondering why they always seem to be in a hurry to leave. They go_ straight _to tutorial and ask you questions about your personal life, huh? Well, I don’t think anyone minds you telling the truth, Tharja. Just be mindful of Nah, remember the story we’ve agreed on._

 

To Tiki – 11:55

_Of course._

 

When Tharja looks up, the seated girls are eyeing her curiously, and she takes another sip of coffee—black, like her soul, because who cares about originality if the cliché is just in her thoughts—before making it clear that she is willing to answer their question. “I do live with all of them, yes, along with Nowi’s kid—kid sister, that is; well, she’s… about your age, but Nowi still refers to her as such.”

That information seems to surprise the girls a little and from what Tharja can see on their faces, neither Robin nor Cordelia had thought Nowi old enough to have a “kid sister”. Neither of them seems able—or perhaps willing—to speak, but Maribelle scoffs openly at her friends and asks, with a tone that suggests that she’s only doing this to sate _somebody_ _else’s_ curiosity, how long Tharja’s living arrangements have been as such. This time it’s Olivia who prods her maybe-girlfriend’s (Tharja isn’t quite sure) shoulder with a gentle hand, and Maribelle looks appropriately abashed with her own behaviour before her eyes focus back on Tharja.

“We’ve lived together as a family—of sorts—for…I don’t know how long.” She really, really doesn’t. “We’ve all known each other since we were children.”

It is not technically a lie; what were those hard, war-torn years, if not the childhood of such long-lived lives?

“That sounds so nice,” says Olivia, honesty spilling from her lips. “You sound like you love your family a lot, Tharja, no matter that they’re not related to you.” At her words, she turns and smiles at Cordelia, who smiles softly back and pats Olivia’s hand with her own, and Tharja feels like she’s missing the depth of something important. She lets it pass by in the face of another question from Robin.

“But are you married to—” There’s the sound of a sharp intake of air as two different hands fly at Robin’s back and Maribelle’s parasol—because _of course_ she would still have one, in this day and age—raps the white-haired girl in the ribs.“I mean…I’m sorry to intrude again Tharja. I don’t expect you to answer that, and I’m really, really sorry. That was extremely inappropriate of me, and I apologize.”

Tharja shakes her head; she has to cut this thread of conversation short, and now, but it’s still difficult to see Robin so…recalcitrant. “I’m not upset about the intrusions, Robin, but I’m not happy about them either. While I think it something of a compliment that you girls feel…comfortable enough to speak to me like this, you must remember that I am your professor and not your friend. Other professors wouldn’t be so willing to overlook your excess of familiarity.” _Was that too harsh?_ If it was, Robin doesn’t show that she is hurt, instead nodding slowly and sagely. Tharja is sure that the girl can tell that the speech was given for her benefit alone, though Olivia, Maribelle, and Cordelia also nod in agreement.

“I’ve _said_ you need to take your invasive tendencies down a step, darling,” she hears Maribelle whisper not-all-too-quietly in Robin’s ear. Tharja takes a moment to wonder if the lack of venom in the blonde’s voice has anything to do with the hand that Olivia places on Maribelle’s shoulder.

Eyes raised, she diverts her attention to see a hint of disappointment splashed across Robin’s face and of course, she can’t help herself from speaking again. “As you’ve asked it already, I may as well answer you…but this is the last.” She waits a second, unsurprised when all four girls immediately focus on her, and then she says, “I’m not married to Nowi, Tiki, or Anna, and certainly not Nah…I’m not romantically attached to anyone.”

She doesn’t know why anybody would be particularly affected by her announcement of…well, her _singleness_ —but Robin, if Tharja’s eyes are not playing tricks on her, seems to sit up just a little bit straighter and taps her chin with her forefinger in a very Anna-like way. Tharja wonders if her own Robin had had such strange little tics. She makes a note to ask somebody about it when she gets home as the rest of her students slowly begin to pick their way to the seats that have by now been claimed permanently, as is customary in classrooms.

The rest of the lesson, Tharja pays very careful attention to the Shepherds, which isn’t all too difficult considering how closely they sit to her lecturing space. She wants to make sure that she remembers every little twitch.

It’s frustrating that she still can’t sort through what once was and what now is.

 

***

 

When she walks through the door of her house and looks around, Tharja groans. She’d forgotten the day. Nobody will be home until later, except for Nah, but the sounds of the television are blaring from the den and Tharja calls out a brief “I’m home, Nah!” so that the younger woman doesn’t panic when her manakete senses detect another presence. Not that she would; Nah’s usual stoicism is directly against panicking.

“Welcome home, Auntie Tharja!” Nah call back brightly. After a beat, she adds, “Was your day fine, today?”  
           

Tharja asks herself if her day _was_ actually fine, and it was, aside from the strange questions she’d been asked before class. “Yes, Nah, thank you. How was yours?” she asks, thankful that Nah’s show has been paused for the moment. She’s never liked yelling, except for on the battlefield, and time has far-removed her and her family from any such place.

“It was nothing special. The new exhibit is coming along nicely though, thanks to Mom and Auntie Anna…” there’s a lingering silence, and Tharja knows that Nah is holding something back.

“Good to hear. By the way, Nah…I know this is out of the blue, but do you remember what our comrades were like…during the war?”

Nah is silent for a moment. When she does speak, her voice does not resemble the self-assured tone that Tharja has come to associate with Nowi’s daughter. “…I do, Auntie Tharja. Why?”

The door of communication between them is left ajar, but somehow, something feels wrong.

Tharja doesn’t want to make the younger woman uncomfortable just to sate her curiosity, and instead of pushing Nah to speak the way she might have done during the Grima years, she steps into the den and gives Nah a small smile. “No reason. Sorry to ask…I’ll just change, okay?”

“Sure, Auntie Tharja,” says Nah, who, for all her stoicism, can’t quite hide the curiosity in her eyes. Tharja nods and practically forces her body up the stairs.

Changing happens more slowly than usual, and when she comes back downstairs the television is still showing the irritatingly bright blue “pause” screen that Tharja dislikes so much. Nah has placed a bowl of potato chips in front of Tharja’s seat. A bowl of candied chocolate drops rests in Nah’s lap—M&M’s, she thinks they’re called—and Tharja smiles at it perhaps without meaning to.

“Are you going to eat all of those before dinner?”

Nah laughs. “Mom wouldn’t appreciate that, I think. She was always so upset when Father did something like that, which was often.”

 _Ah._ Tharja notices the way that Nah closes in on herself as the word “father” leaves her lips. The girl goes silent a while, fiddling with the carroty strands of hair that have fallen into her eyes. Though she knows that Nah is doing so more because the colour of her hair is all she really has left of Gaius than anything else, Tharja can’t help but think that it might be time she and Nah got their bangs trimmed.

It strikes her then, as she thinks about something as mundane as a haircut, that since the reappearance of the Shepherds, nobody has really asked Nah how she feels about the whole arrangement. As things stand, the “baby” of their house is the only one to not have seen any of their reincarnated once-comrades.

“…Is everything…fine with you, Nah?”

“Yeah! Um…what do you want to watch, Auntie Tharja?”

Tharja studies Nah until the latter turns her face towards the screen, and she says, “Doesn’t matter. What are you watching? Same show?”

“Yeah. Second season though. I’m just about to start the fourth episode.”

Tharja presses the button herself, and she relaxes a little as Nah’s sadness seems to dissipate. The brightly coloured characters on the screen go through their scenes and sing their songs and Tharja finds that she’s actually enjoying herself, but about halfway through the episode Nah’s sniffles can be heard over the high-pitched squeaks of “the world’s best super idol”. Tharja hits “stop” and turns to her best friend’s daughter. She’s greeted with the firm line of Nah’s mouth and tears streaming from the manakete’s eyes.

“Nah?”

The younger woman looks up at her, and Tharja knows without asking that Nah is thinking about her father. She allows Nah’s still-small form to curl up into her own, though she can only imagine how cold she must feel, and waits for the girl’s tears to stop.

She can’t bring herself to ask Nah anything about what the Shepherds were like before. It wouldn’t be fair. Instead, she mentions what’s happened to Nowi, Tiki, and Anna after Nah has gone up to bed. Nowi places a hand on Tharja’s arm and squeezes gently, a sad smile on her lips.

 

 

Though they all agree it isn’t her fault, Tharja can’t help but feel just a little guilty.

 

 

***

 

The next week, Anna all but shoves Nah into the car along with Tharja—Tiki and Nowi take the other—and insists that Nah go out and act “the age on your driver’s licence, sweetie”. Tharja doesn’t know what the redhead is up to, but placing Nah in front of her father and the parents of some of her old comrades would be traumatizing, she feels, so she asks if Nah wouldn’t mind spending time in her office. The carrot-topped woman eyes her silently, and Tharja can’t blame her; the prospect of four hours of doing nothing would be unappealing to anybody.

“Will you be there with me?” Nah reminds her of Noire, shy and reluctant to be without her, but Tharja knows that Nah is just not used to not being at the museum at this time.

She hates that she has to shake her head no. Catching the stricken look in Nah’s eyes, she explains, “Your mother and I have to sit in on Tiki’s lecture today, and I don’t know that we’d be allowed to bring you.”

“I understand,” says Nah. Tharja can’t help but feel that the woman is much younger than she actually is, because Nah looks mostly the same as she had during the war. She’s taller than Nowi was at this age, Tharja thinks, but her slim frame and the rounded set of her face makes her look no more than fifteen or sixteen; certainly not the twenty years old that her identification would suggest. The pout that she’s worn for the last week doesn’t help the image.

Tharja feels badly for Nah. Knowing this might not be the wisest course of action she turns briefly to the dragonkin and tells her, “Text your mother. Ask her if you can sit in on my tutorial…I think it would be to your benefit.”

Ever the clever woman, Nah sees what it is that Tharja is really saying almost immediately. The once-sorceress is thankful that an excited squeal is all that she gets; had it been Nowi beside her, she would have been struggling to keep her eyes on the road and her hands on the steering wheel. The exchange of messages is quicker than she’d expected— _why am_ I _the worst at this?_ —and Nah tells her that Nowi thinks it would be perfectly fine. 

 

She hopes so; it’ll be the first time she’s felt right about something in a long while.

 

“Okay. So you wait in my office, and after Tiki’s lecture I’ll come and get you. I’ll say you’re my assistant for the day.”

“Won’t they wonder why I’m assisting _you_ and not my mo—older sister?”

Tharja shrugs, “None of their business. And be mindful of that, Nah. I know it’s difficult, but—

“I know, Auntie Tharja…I mean…Tharja,” says Nah, making a face at the unfamiliar familiarity that Tharja’s unaccompanied first name brings.

Tharja can’t help but laugh just a little. “Please don’t make that face in front of my students.”

“I make no promises.”

 

***

 

For the first five minutes of class, Tharja is convinced that she’s made a terrible, terrible mistake. Somehow, miraculously, she and Nah make it to her classroom before the Shepherd girls, and she tells her niece—because there’s no use denying the familial bond between them—that she has the choice of sitting wherever she likes, or at Tharja’s own desk. Nah sits at the desk, feet barely brushing the carpet beneath her, and she and Tharja share a few minutes of quiet conversation—emotional support—before Robin’s familiar steps liven up the lecture hall.

She’s followed closely by the also-familiar footsteps of Cordelia, Olivia, and Maribelle who in turn are followed by heavier footsteps, and Tharja has to stop herself from cursing. She wonders why it had to be _today_ of all days that _all_ of the Shepherds are early to class. Nah pats her hand and shakes her head, the action tantamount to saying “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine” but Tharja still can’t help but feel just a little concerned.

“Hey Tharja!” says Gaius, “So I was just wondering, if we don’t manage to meet the page requirement, how bad are our marks gonna be?”

Tharja can’t help but turn to Nah, who stares fixedly at the wall behind her reincarnated father’s head. Gaius has yet to notice the girl with his hair and his nose and love for another him in her eyes. Tharja snaps back to attention as the other Shepherds drop their bags into their seats and begin to chatter animatedly, as is the norm. “I’ll mark whatever you hand in, Gaius, and the marks you lose shouldn’t be too bad if what you _do_ manage to finish is of good quality.”

“So…?”         

“Try your best, Gaius, and if you need an extension, let me know and we can work things out,” she sighs, trying not to sound too fond. Nowi’s husband had been kind to her once, and she looks at him almost like a brother. She turns away for a moment to check on Nah, who has recovered her composure, before turning to the Shepherds just in time to watch Gaius roll over the second row of desks and into his seat.

It’s as if Nah’s laugh is the only thing that brings her into the Shepherds’ collective attention.

“Hi!” says Robin, sounding much more youthful and much friendlier than Tharja has ever seen her be. “I’m Robin, are you Nowi’s sister, by any chance?”

Nah hides her surprise well. “Y-yeah…”

“Wanna sit with us? Can’t imagine it would be fun watching Tharja lecture from behind…I mean, at least not for _you_.” The suggestion that forms around the tone of Robin’s voice is clear enough to win surprised gasps out of almost everyone save for Cordelia, who merely shakes her head.

Tharja is glad she’s too stunned to blush, and the look that Nah gives her as she stands and walks over to Robin is a priceless mixture of comedic helplessness and eyebrow-raising intrigue. She doesn’t have much time to talk afterwards, as the Shepherds all begin to ask Nah questions, presumably about what Tharja is like at home. All through the class she watches Nah’s face, and is impressed by the calmness that radiates from the dragonkin.

***

It isn’t until after class, when Nah pulls her aside, that she realizes she hasn’t been paying attention to the Shepherds’ behaviour as she had told herself she would.

“We need to talk,” says Nah, with all the gravity that Tharja would expect of a serious Tiki, and she can do little else but nod. “Have you noticed anything…strange about Robin lately?”

“Not particularly…why?”

 She doesn’t know what it is that compels her to lie about the strangeness she’s been noticing, but she’s already done it and she doesn’t want to take it back. Robin calls out a friendly “Nice to meet you, Nah! See you next week, Tharja!” and in spite of herself Tharja turns and waves, gently and not at all the way a professor should be waving to a student.

Nah’s eyes soften when they reach hers, and Tharja doesn’t know why, but she feels anxious to return home for their talk. She's pretty sure she might have broken a few traffic laws on the way home, but nobody cares about that. At least, Nah doesn't.

And currently, that's all the matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody can convince me that Tiki wouldn't fully write walls-of-text-texts. She's old-school like that.


	9. Missing Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja realizes that she's never felt what's missing so _distinctly_.

For the first time in a long time, Tharja hopes that Nah is wrong.

Realistically, it makes sense that she would be, having only seen the reincarnated Shepherds for the first time last week. It's Tharja who has to see them every Wednesday. It’s Tharja who has to sit there and listen as the love of her thrice-blasted life coos and giggles at another woman, a perfect woman. It’s Tharja who shouldn’t be alive right now, shouldn’t be lusting after her long-dead wife’s reincarnation who’s little more than a child, no older than Tharja had been when she and Robin first said their wedding vows as the world around them threatened to lose itself to darkness.

 

She wants to fight the shade of hope that says that Nah might be right.

 

Nah is clever, more observant than her mother and all of her aunts, and more tactful than most people would ever give her credit for. She sees things that others often overlook, and her age has yet to dull her to the little things in life. Because of this, Tharja knows that it would be wiser to believe in what Nah says she’s seen, but she can’t bring herself to do that.

To do that would be to allow a little bit of hope into her heart again, after such a long, long time, and she doesn’t know how much more of this she can take. She is reminded that she is only human, and that she has long outstayed her welcome in the world.

In the cool of her office, lights off so that she will not be disturbed, Tharja closes her eyes and thinks back to the events of last week.

Nah had seemed almost shy to speak, and Tharja didn’t know why at the time…still doesn’t. As long as she had known Nah, the once-sorceress had never seen her so timid; she’d certainly been very lively during her visits to Morgan, in the days leading up to Robin’s death. Even now, the remembrance of Nah’s strangely reserved voice bothers Tharja for some reason. The young dragonkin’s words echo in her head.

 

The silence of her own thoughts allows them to echo and re-echo.

 

_“She follows your every movement with her eyes.”_

 

If that is true, it is only because Tharja is a teacher, and Robin has always been an attentive student. Her memories may be difficult to sift through, but Tharja _does_ remember the way that Robin’s eyes had focused on Cordelia during a lesson on fighting with lances; the way that Robin had watched the deft peeling of Lon’qu’s knife against the army’s potatoes. The way Robin had watched _her_ teaching Morgan and Noire about her hexing implementations, smiling fondly when she thought that Tharja wasn’t aware. This new Robin doesn’t act in any way different in this respect; she is observant and bright, and it is only natural that she would watch her teacher studiously.

 

_“She hangs on your every word.”_

 

If this is true, Tharja attributes such behaviour to the same thing as the watching that Robin is supposedly doing. What good is it to simply look at your teacher if you aren’t listening to what she says?

 

 _“She sometimes just stops what she’s doing and smiles, and sighs this distracted sigh. And she’s_ always _looking at you when she does.”_

 

This doesn’t mean anything, as far as she’s concerned. Tharja knows that most of the Shepherds saw her wife as someone almost untouchable in spite of her open, eager friendliness. The general consensus of the time was that Robin was serious and reflective, and always thinking about the army and their next tactical move even during the easier times.

While that wasn't wrong, there had been more to Robin than that. She had been, in their time, a bit of a daydreamer, prone to the odd moment of spacey, unfocused inattention. Looking into the now, Tharja herself finds that she’s been experiencing similar things, and she knows that it isn’t impossible that Robin is only looking straight ahead while she daydreams.

Besides, sighing is, if Tharja remembers correctly, a markedly _Cordelia_ trait: understandable that Robin would pick such behaviour up from her otherwise perfect girlfriend—Tharja still isn’t convinced that they aren’t dating. The once-sorceress presses the heels of her hands against her eyes and heaves a heavy sigh of her own.

 

_“Even Cordelia teases Robin when one of their friends catches her looking at you.”_

 

This is perhaps the hardest thing to reconcile with, and Tharja knows that Nah felt some sense of accomplishment at the startled look in her eyes when she’d first said it. Try as she might, there just isn’t a way that she can logically explain this. Tharja knows that her attachment to Robin was of a…special kind, but she doesn’t think it illogical to say that nobody, man or woman, would earnestly tease their partner about potentially liking somebody else (though she doesn’t believe this is the case with Robin; it can’t be).

If this is true for everyone, then how can Cordelia be in a relationship with Robin and tease—and perhaps even encourage—whatever fascination Nah seems to think that Robin has for her? And if this is all really happening, if Nah’s observations are to be believed as truth (and how could they not be, considering their source) what does it all mean? Surely the answer is simple and Tharja has merely grown so old and so complacent with the way things are that she just isn’t grasping a very simple, very straightforward concept?

Could Robin be…no, she would never…Tharja just isn’t sure of anything at all.

She groans and her head falls until it is resting against the dark wood of her desk. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it will do. She can’t be too long in her office, after all. In ten minutes she will have to go to her tutorial and teach. For the longest time she’d been so comfortable in her career that it was as if nothing could shake her…and then Robin showed up and now, Tharja’s nervous and acting as if she’s never taught a tutorial before.

For one hour she will have to stand in front of the reincarnated souls of her comrades-in-arms, and the woman she’s loved for the last millennium or so, and she will have to pretend that she is not currently stewing over with questions about what they were, and what they are, and how she and Robin fit in with this entire mess.

 

_"If you won’t believe me, Auntie, you’ll just need to look and see for yourself.”_

 

With one last sigh to rival one of Cordelia’s most heartfelt, she rises from her desk.

 

***

 

Just before class is about to begin, Robin surprises her by coming up and asking if she has an extra pen, and Tharja is about to ask why she doesn’t just borrow one from a friend when she realizes that that just isn’t a possibility. Gaius and Chrom write in pencil, with what Tharja suspects are actually two halves of the same pencil. Henry, Cordelia, and Olivia all have laptops of varying makes and sizes, and Maribelle takes notes with her tablet—that’s what the little rectangular mini-computer-thing is, right—propped up on the desk. And Robin isn’t interested in friendships with other students, it seems, leaving Tharja as her only logical hope.

With a small smile, Tharja rummages around in her bag for a pen, offering Robin the first one that her fingers catch hold of. It’s one of her favourites: a Montblanc fountain pen the price of which Tiki has yet to divulge. The black and gold inlays gleam under the light, and the body of the pen is engraved with a personal inscription, faded with age…she’s had it for at least fifty years now. Tharja fervently hopes that Robin won’t notice the shallow bite marks on the end of the pen. It’s a poor habit, but Tharja hasn’t managed to curb pen-biting after all the long years.

She tries to study the Shepherds—mostly Robin—for the entirety of the class, and because the topic is one that requires discussion more than anything else, she is able to do so without much impediment. Nah is either supremely more observant than she is (which is true), else the dragonkin just has a way of picking up on the important details (which is also something Tharja knows to be true, given who Nah’s father was, and the kind of man Nah’s husband was).

It’s frustrating, but Tharja doesn’t notice anything aside from how beautiful Robin looks, not at first. Today the love of Tharja’s unnaturally extended lifetime is flanked by Maribelle and Olivia, which is odd in and of itself: she’s _fairly_ sure that the blonde and the pinkette are dating, though she hasn’t actually seen or heard anything in the affirmative. At any rate, they haven’t sat apart since the very first week of classes. Today Cordelia sits on Olivia’s other side, and Tharja is further confused.

Maribelle leans over and whispers something to Robin every so often, but as far as Tharja can tell it’s nothing more than a reminder to “sit straight, Robin” here, or an admonishment to “write more neatly, darling” there. Once, though it is a little more muffled than the rest of Maribelle’s little asides, Tharja thinks she hears the blonde’s voice say, “Robin, darling, really now…pen-biting is such an awful habit. _And isn’t that Tharja’s pen?_ ” and Tharja has to turn around to confirm this.

Robin isn’t _biting_ her pen per se, but her lips are definitely touching it and Tharja is a little ashamed to admit, even to herself, that she’s glad that she still hasn’t managed to stop herself from putting the ends of her pens in her mouth as she writes. She has to look away from Robin all of a sudden, thoughts becoming too indecent to be left unattended. With a shallow cough to cover up her movement, she turns to the other two girls in the front row, the corner of her eye dedicated to watching Robin and her pen.

Cordelia and Olivia are respectful and diligent in their note-taking, but the way that they sometimes turn fully to each other implies that they’re probably instant-messaging as well. Which is fine with her, really, since Tharja knows that they’re amongst her best students and they’ll end up contributing if she really needs them to. That isn’t to say that she isn’t curious, of course, but she’s not too concerned with that. Tharja tries to turn a little more slowly back towards Robin, and she thinks she must have given herself away when Robin’s eyes meet hers and the white-haired girl winks. The gesture is followed by a wan smile.

It’s getting more difficult to fight the blush from her face, and Tharja almost wishes for the winter; she’ll be able to blame any and all coloration of her cheeks on the strength of the university’s heaters, when that time comes.

Tharja looks at her watch and has to bite back a groan.

_Five-minutes down, fifty-five left to go._

 

***

 

The class ends as Tharja is finally prepared to admit defeat: she hasn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary in Robin’s behaviour today. Pen-biting: normal. Winking: normal. Overtly smiling that wide, toothy grin: uncomfortable, but normal.

And then, _it_ happens, and Tharja is alternately glad and afraid that Nah has been right all along.

Robin stays at her seat, writing away, until the only people in the room are herself, Tharja, Maribelle, Cordelia, and Olivia. As if realizing for the first time that the class has finished, Robin rises slowly, gracefully, and her eyes fall on Tharja as if she’s _not_ the professor that has just been mediating discussion for about an hour, but something else entirely. “Thank you for letting me borrow your pen, Tharja.”

“You’re welcome,” says Tharja, noticing how the three girls in the front row are suddenly very interested in each other’s hair and clothes and backpacks...and the two figures at the front of the classroom. _Subtle._

She can’t fault them their lack of tact, of course…she was young once, too.

“It’s beautiful…,” Robin starts, “A gift?”

Tharja tenses. She knows that Robin has promised not to intrude in her life any more but she also knows that Robin is a crafty girl, prone to getting what she wants through her own cleverness. “Yes.” The flash in Robin’s eyes is enough to let Tharja know that if she isn’t careful, she’ll be pulled into the girl’s trap.

The body of the pen is grasped loosely between Robin’s slim fingers, and Tharja meets the girl’s hand with one of her own pale ones. Their fingers brush, and immediately Tharja’s entire mind is made up of a litany of romantic clichés. Robin rolls her hand over so that their skin touches closely, only the pen’s slim tube between them, and Tharja’s heart is afire.

Robin’s hand touching hers is rapture. Fireworks behind her eyes. Angelic choirs singing. Her breath fleeing her body. The renewal of her soul. _But gods,_ she feels pathetic. As if aware of how she affects the older woman, Robin smiles, and it is the most beautiful thing Tharja has ever seen. “It’s wonderful,” she says, and Tharja feels as if she’s talking about more than just the pen between them. At least, she hopes so.

“It’s my favourite pen,” she offers, not knowing why she would say something like that.

Robin smiles again, but doesn’t say anything, retracting her hand from Tharja’s almost too slowly to be considered normal. Tharja is pleased with her self-control when she doesn’t pull the girl back. Instead she just stands there dumbly, staring at the way Robin’s fingers slide out of her grasp.

Maribelle is whispering something in her prim voice, something she can’t quite catch, but it sounds like “incorrigible, darling” and it seems as if Cordelia’s sigh is not heartbroken but rather…dreamy. _Well, that’s strange._

The pen is tossed unceremoniously into her bag and Tharja turns around sharply, reminding the girls that they have a paper due in three weeks with a quick look over her shoulder. Cordelia coughs. “Ah…Tharja?”

“Yes, Cordelia?” she says without turning to look. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, really,” Cordelia says, “but…just to let you know, Robin, Olivia and I won’t be in class next week.”

Tharja forces herself not to turn around too quickly, plastering a small, curious smile onto her face. “Oh?”

Olivia and Robin look between their friend and their professor while Maribelle fusses noisily with the things she somehow still has not managed to get put away. Cordelia isn’t blushing or anything, so whatever the reason for their proposed absence Tharja suspects it isn’t anything silly. Then again, considering the source, she doubts it would ever be something silly: Cordelia isn’t one to skip classes, and Robin and Olivia are unlikely to skip without reason.

“Next Wednesday is mine and Olivia’s mother’s birthday celebration; Father has to leave for business the next day and won’t be home for at least a month, so we had to plan it for Mother’s actual birthday. We’re all needed to help prepare.”

Tharja has to think about that for a second. “Both your mother and Olivia’s share the same birthday? How nice!” she says, because that sounds polite, even if she really doesn’t care all too much.

There’s a polite cough and when Tharja looks back at the girls, they’re shaking their heads slightly. It’s Olivia who speaks, surprisingly, and when she does there’s very little in her voice that would suggest that she were the reincarnation of a woman who, for most of the time Tharja knew her, could barely get a sentence out without almost exploding into a frenzy of flustered fairy dust.

With more self-assurance than Tharja could remember Olivia ever having, the pinkette says, “Actually, we have the same mother…I mean, technically? I’m adopted.”

Tharja makes a quick mental check of the class list. Cordelia’s last name is Faulkner, but Olivia’s is Bellrose-something…Bellrose-Faulkner. Wow. “Ah. That explains the hyphenation.”

“Yeah,” says Olivia. She seems very interested in her shoes (so much for self-assurance) as she speaks, but the other girls don’t take over for her; kind of them, to give her whatever chance she can get at conversing with somebody who isn’t a close friend. “I uh…was a foster child for a bit, but the Faulkners adopted me after…”

“You don’t need to explain it to me, Olivia,” says Tharja. She hopes her voice sounds warmer than she thinks it does.

Robin steps up before Tharja can say anything more. “Oh, and their mom is my godmother, otherwise I’d be in class.”

Tharja simply nods, because what else can she do? It’s a legitimate enough reason for them not to be in class, and they won’t really be doing anything of import until after the essay has been handed in. If anything, it might be nice to go through a week of not seeing three of her usual seven Shepherds…maybe. “I’m sure Maribelle would be willing to share her notes with you, so I’m not particularly worried about you missing a day.”

“Precisely what I told them, Tharja,” says Maribelle in her irritatingly proper, perfectly familiar voice that Tharja now finds almost endearing. “Now, if you’d excuse such an abrupt departure, we really must be going. _My_ mother is having a birthday party this Saturday, and these three have yet to assist me in purchasing the perfect gift for her.” And out the door she flounces, pink jacket glowing under the bright lights of the hallway.

Tharja laughs at the incredulous expressions on the faces of her three remaining students, glad for the tension-breaking Maribelle and her fabulous exits. “You heard her, ladies. Go, assist. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Bye Tharja!” says Olivia, who scurries out of the room so quickly that Tharja is really having a hard time _not_ thinking that she and Maribelle are dating. Cordelia and Robin exchange a look, and once again it is annoying to the once-sorceress that she still has no clue how to read their secret-best-friend non-verbal code. It’s not that she wants to be in on all their secrets or anything but…

“Thank you for your understanding, Tharja. See you in two weeks,” says Cordelia with a polite smile and a nod and a backwards glance in Robin’s direction as she all but chases after her friend and sister.

Robin still hasn’t finished packing up her things, which is ridiculous because it shouldn’t take so long to throw a notebook into a backpack that doesn’t appear to be all that full. Tharja hates herself for it but she slows her own packing to match Robin’s pace. The girl doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry in spite of the fact that it’s just her and the teacher remaining in class.

The silence that falls between them is comfortable, familiar to Tharja if not to the white-haired girl only a few feet away. She feels Robin’s gaze on her back but doesn’t turn around. It would be difficult to have to explain exactly why she always knows when Robin about to call for her attention.

“Ah…Tharja?”

She turns now, adjusting the strap of her bag so that it doesn’t dig into her shoulder quite so roughly. “Yes, Robin?”

“Just…thank you again, for the pen, and for being so cool about next week.” Robin shrugs her backpack onto her shoulders.

Tharja takes a few steps towards the door, silently pleased when Robin seems not to mind the proximity. “It’s nothing you need to thank me for, Robin.”

The girl smiles, and it’s a genuine, warm gesture; vastly different from her coquettish little grins and insufferably sly smirks. Tharja feels the heat rise in her cheeks and she mutters a hurried goodbye before hastening out the door. This is strange.

It isn’t until she’s almost halfway down the hallway that she hears Robin’s voice calling her name with all the volume and confidence of somebody who doesn’t care that there are other classes in session in the neighbouring classrooms. “Tharja!” When the once-sorceress turns around she’s greeted by a wink and one of those little grins she has come to dread, much as she loves them. “See you in two weeks. I’ll miss you—and your class!”

Tharja doesn’t really register what’s going on so she shouts back a “You too!” before rushing out to her car.

 

***

 

When she gets home and tells Nah all that’s happened, the carrot-headed dragonkin bursts into laughter, loud and unrestrained, until Tharja realizes exactly what’s happened. Or maybe she doesn’t understand it all that well, because Nah seems to think she’s missing something. Tharja repeats her inner theories to Nah, who has to stifle another round of giggles.

“She’s flirting with you, Auntie.”

“What? No she isn’t! How can you tell?”

Nah laughs again, and amidst comments about Tharja’s old age severely affecting her observational abilities the dragonkin manages to stutter out something Tharja assumes might be her reasons for thinking such a thing. Not that Tharja can understand the words, masked as they are with Nah’s gasps and giggles. Whatever it is, Tharja doesn’t think about it too hard until she’s seated at her desk, writing something or other for a class she doesn’t really care to teach, but with nothing better to do.

Each time her lips touch the end of her pen, she smiles.

And then she remembers that Robin is a student and if she’s actually flirting with Tharja then that means…

_Well shit._


	10. Wandering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja is adrift, and Tiki tries her best to help.

Though she’ll never admit it to anybody, Tharja is utterly surprised to see Maribelle walk into class at the usual time, though her usual company is not present. Tharja panics, just a little, unsure how she is supposed to speak to the blonde, if she is supposed to speak to the blonde at all. They had never been particularly close, she and Maribelle; though a grudging respect for their respective magical talents had existed between them during the war.

With their current relationship being what it is, Tharja doesn’t have the faintest idea what their interactions should look like.

“Good morning, Tharja,” says Maribelle just as Tharja turns away, and the dark-haired woman has to calm the sudden jumping of her nerves. Navigating through the intricacies of social conduct in real life—not in the sheltered space that she and her family have worked so long in carving out for themselves—has never been her strong suit.

“Good morning, Maribelle,” she says. “How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you,” Maribelle daintily plucks her tablet from her bag and sets it down in front of her, though it remains off. “Ah…Tharja?” The younger woman has her hands tucked neatly into her lap under the desk, and there’s a soft clicking sound that Tharja can’t quite place. She’s too focused on Maribelle’s voice to really think about it.

 _Well this is new._ She’s certain she’s never, ever heard Maribelle sound quite as timid as she does now, but that’s not really any of her concern, if she actually thinks about it. “Yes?” She does her best to wear a friendly face, one that isn’t too interested, but isn’t too detached either.

At first it seems as if the blonde has changed her mind against speaking, because she fidgets with a curl of pale hair and looks down at her lap; but the moment passes just as swiftly as it comes, and she says, “I would just like to apologize to you for how inappropriate my dear friend Robin can be, particularly when it comes to you, as well as thank you for indulging her. I don’t imagine she must be…trying, at times, but your kindness is much appreciated.”

“Oh? Well that’s very kind of _you_ , Maribelle. Though truthfully there’s nothing to be apologetic about on your part, or even grateful for. Of all the students I’ve had who’ve chanced to be a little…inappropriate…Robin is certainly not the worst.” _And perhaps I want her to be rather inappropri—_ stop. She would slap herself if she could get away with doing it without being noticed.

Maribelle seems strangely pleased to hear her friend so praised, and there’s another moment’s silence—accented by that same soft tapping—before she speaks again. “Still, I hope she’s not offended you in any way, Tharja. Robin has a little difficulty interacting with our younger female professors.”

She knows she shouldn’t probe, and that Maribelle is possibly divulging more than most students would normally divulge to teachers about their private affairs, but she can’t help the “Oh?” that escapes her lips.

Taking that as a sign to continue, the blonde, who now has wrapped a few curls around her left pointer finger, says, “You see, her sister is just about as old as you are, if you’ll pardon me being so presumptuous as to assume you are a certain age—that may contribute to her complete lack of deference to you.”

Tharja has to resist the urge to laugh a little drily. Maribelle would never be able to fathom just how far off even her best guess would be from the truth of Tharja’s age.

Instead of saying anything to that effect, she merely shakes her head and smiles. “It’s alright. At the very least your presumptions are polite.”

“Perhaps not the presumptions, so much as she who presumes them,” Maribelle says, the edge of a sharp humour shining through her voice, and Tharja has to admit, even if only to herself, that that is worth a laugh. Had Maribelle been so witty before? And would Tharja, the Tharja she was before her life’s inexplicable changes, have been open to such humour?

 

It’s a sobering thought during an otherwise light-hearted moment, and Tharja hates that she still can’t release herself from her reflective nature. It ruins everything, lately.

 

“You’re very clever,” she says, noting that Maribelle takes the praise quietly, and in stride. Tharja is vaguely aware that the humility she’s witnessing is a new-Maribelle trait.

“What did you say this time, Twinkles?”

Tharja immediately turns away from Gaius’s approaching voice. Ever since Nah’s visit—and the crying that had followed it later that night—she finds it difficult to look at the man without wanting to cry a little herself. Instead she just allows the pair’s friendly banter to wash over her, mulling over what was and what is and what might have been harder than she’s ever done before.

In doing so she finds herself half sitting, half leaning on her desk, watching her students trickle into the classroom with a sort of mild disinterest that she hopes they won’t take for rudeness. Not that she _really_ cares about what her students think of her. Only seven opinions matter in this class of forty…well, thirty-seven, today.

Chrom is quick to follow Gaius’s entrance. The small smile and nod he gives her is unfamiliar to Tharja. She nods back and watches him join his boyfriend in the row behind Maribelle. The blonde is turned to face them, hands still folded in her lap. Henry is the last of the Shepherds to arrive, laughing and out of breath when he finally stumbles into the classroom. There are still about five minutes to go before she has to begin, and she watches the three young men and their little lady of a friend as they just go on…existing.

 

She wonders how Robin was able to keep track of all of the Shepherds in their time.

 

Her wife had been a magnificent friend, the kind of person whose magnetic amity was the stuff of legends—well, aside from the whole, saving-the-world-through-suicidal-sacrifice bit that the historians of old had obsessed over. Tharja is still not quite sure as to how Robin had been able to keep all the names and faces and personality quirks up-to-date in her head, nor is she certain how the other woman had never forgotten a comrade’s birthday, or mixed it up with another.

Looking at the four reincarnated heroes before her, Tharja is ashamed to think that outside of what she knows about them all _now_ , she’d cared little for them back in the days when they’d all held each other’s lives in their hands. She’d known Henry in passing as a child, before his parents’ stupid decision to send him to one of the “prestigious” schools of magic available to Plegians of their standing. Gaius she’d become fairly neutral to, if only through constant exposure to him through Nowi. The same with Chrom, though it was more because of his strangely co-dependent relationship with _her_ wife. _Two halves of a greater whole, indeed._

“Okay everybody, settle down. It’s time to begin. Now, today, we’ll be going over what Professor Sairi discussed with you during lecture. Can anybody tell me…” she carries on. The class is beginning to let down its guard in general, and though the Shepherds will undoubtedly be the most willing to engage her in discussion, the other students are at least beginning to take interest, noticeable by a marginally wider range of students putting their hands up. Marginally. She doesn’t much bother with the small sense of teacher’s pride she feels, because as the discussion opens up she finds herself thinking more about the Shepherds.

More particularly, about Robin, and how strange it is to be discussing class content without the white-haired girl’s pithy, witty, humorous, but always technically correct responses.  She knows that it is madness to think of it, but she wonders if Robin is as close to her friends now as she was all those many, many, many years ago. Whether the younger woman is flirting with her or not, Tharja just can’t bring herself to a complete reconciliation of what Robin was and what Robin is. Changes in the other Shepherds are not as jarring, not as heartbreaking, not as exciting.

Does Robin like her just as she looks now, or is there something she could do to make herself even _more_ attractive in the younger woman’s eyes? Is her father still Validar, and will Tharja one day have to look into the hated eyes of the man who’d bred the one love of her life to be little more than a demon’s human shell? Will Robin expect Tharja to become closer to the Shepherds, Robin’s clear best friends? Will Robin want to get to know Anna, Tiki, Nowi, and Nah…again?

All of the questions distract her from the discussion, and after having to ask a student to clarify their point for the third time, Tharja pulls her thoughts away from Robin.

She feels so very, very strange, and it’s almost the way it was a few weeks ago, when she’d broken down in tears in Nowi’s arms. There’s a certain sense of loneliness in her thoughts as she agrees with one student and encourages another to develop their thoughts further. She didn’t know her comrades half as well as her wife had. Even Tiki, who’d only really ever spoken to Robin, Lucina, Nah, and Say’ri, seems to have had a better idea of who the rest of their fellow soldiers were than Tharja, and Tharja had been with Chrom’s militia since the fall of Emmeryn.

Maribelle raises her hand and refutes an erroneous point made by one of her fellow students, and Tharja cannot help but smile a little more brightly at the blonde than she has at anybody else today; it is a smile that she has only ever bestowed upon one of the Shepherds, since the beginning of the school year. She knows that to other students, possibly even to the Shepherds themselves, this appears to be blatant favouritism.

Perhaps it is, but it certainly helps that the Shepherd reincarnations, for whatever reason, are all particularly well-tuned to the course material; even Gaius, the epitome of lazy-cool-guy student, says more things right than wrong. He seems to be more interested in the discussion than normal, and between him, Chrom, Henry, and Maribelle, the class is introduced to even more material than Tharja had hoped it would be possible to introduce at this current point in time.

 

***

 

Tharja is proud of them without knowing why, and it isn’t until the hour is up that she realizes that there’s wetness on her cheeks. Mortified, she reaches up to her face with a shaking hand. Her fingertips come away with faint tears, and as students shuffle past her she catches whispers of “Wonder what was wrong with Tharja today?” and “Was she _crying_? I mean, I get that the state of Plegia was tragic at the time but, like, she wasn’t _there_.”

“You okay, Tharja?” asks Chrom with concern in his voice and a friendliness in his eyes that Tharja vaguely recognizes.

“Yes, Chrom, thank you. Must be my allergies,” she says to the four Shepherds, who have all conveniently converged upon her desk with concern in their eyes and forced smiles on their lips. None of them believes her. There’s an awkward break in conversation, and she stands there facing four of her students, a strained tension in the air.

Henry is the one who manages to break them all out of it, with one of his signature awful puns (“Allergies are the CAWS of all my tears too!”). Thinking about it, it doesn’t make any sense, as it’s almost the middle of winter and _allergies to what, Tharja, you absolute dolt._ After sharing in an awkward, if well-meaning bout of laughter, Tharja waves them all away and sets to packing herself up. She isn’t sure how she’d managed to make herself _cry_ during tutorial, but she suspects it’s something to do with the ridiculous amounts of thinking.

 

Tharja knows it would be smartest not to do so much of that.

 

Maribelle’s chic perfume hits her nose as she walks out of the classroom, and with some surprise Tharja sees that the younger woman has waited for her just outside. “Is there something wrong, Maribelle?”

“No, not at all,” says the blonde rather hurriedly, in a way that Tharja isn’t sure matches the current situation. “I just…was wondering if you’re…alright. I apologize for prying so into your affairs, Tharja, and I know that you are the true adult of the two of us, but are you…is everything fine, with you?” The words sound as if they’re coming from another source, but she doesn’t quite know what it is so instead Tharja tries for a small, small smile.

It probably falls flat, if the expression on Maribelle’s face is any indication, but she makes all the appropriate excuses until the blonde appears satisfied. They go their separate ways, but it feels as if she’s only taken a handful of steps before Maribelle’s voice calls out, “Oh, and Tharja?” She turns around and is greeted by the sight of a faint blush spreading on the blonde’s cheeks. _Strange._

“Yes, Maribelle?”

“Robin…erm, Robin wanted me to let you know that she missed being in class today. And that she… _missed you_.” The last two words are said so very, very faintly that Tharja really only catches them because she’s learned, by now, the valuable skill of lip-reading.

“Ah,” she says in response, not sure how to dignify such a statement with an answer, but it is clear that Maribelle can glean meaning from the warm blush now spreading across Tharja’s own cheeks. “Well…yes, alright then. Have a lovely week, Maribelle.” The blonde nods and there’s another round of parting pleasantries before Tharja once more turns on her heels, stalking towards Tiki’s office with none of her usual intimidating aura. As Maribelle walks away, Tharja hears the same faint tapping sound and wonders what in the world it could be.

The question of the sound is gone from her mind as soon as Tharja reaches Tiki’s office. She’d promised to help the dragonkin with a few things, and Tharja is glad, for once, of the extra work. It will give her an opportunity to speak with Tiki.

That is, that’s what she thinks, until the green-haired woman staggers into her office with a veritable mountain of paperwork. Tharja decides it might be best to wait until the car ride home. Seeing the stress in Tiki’s eyes as she sorts through all of the, well, Tharja isn’t even quite sure what the papers _are_ , the once-sorceress decides to leave off discussion for the night.

After all, they have nothing but time.

 

***

 

Its hours later than usual when Tharja sets foot in her house, but she’s barely taken off her shoes before Hurricane Tiki whisks her away and Tharja find herself seated on Tiki’s bed with finality. She barely has time to think about how she’s _never_ been so _manhandled_ before Tiki’s face is thrust into her own. “So, dear friend,” hums the manakete, “What was it that you wished to speak with me about?”

“Nothing,” says Tharja on instinct, as she usually does when Tiki’s eyes glow this brightly, when Tiki’s smile is this toothy. “May I go to my room now?” She feels strangely like a child waiting for Mother’s permission, but if the smile on the older woman’s face is anything to go by, she won’t be getting it.

Tiki wags a single finger in the air and her smile goes from toothy to just plain frightening. “Now, now, darling. You’ve not forgotten how well I know you, yes? You and I have been together for such a very long time, Tharja, and honesty is the cornerstone of every successful long-term relationship.”

Tharja feels her anticipation of the conversation dissipate, and a very vague, amused annoyance springs up in its place. “Must you phrase everything so suggestively? And isn’t the cornerstone of every successful long-term relationship _trust_?”

Tiki’s new laugh sounds something like a scale, racing up and down the notes. When she looks at Tharja, however, her green, green eyes are sincere. Tharja is disconcerted for a moment, the change being so abrupt, but she feels Tiki’s arms wrap around her and she knows that the time for serious conversation is at hand.

In spite of their ages, the flow of conversation between herself and Tiki has always moved much too swiftly.

“It’s about Robin, isn’t it?”

“You knew already,” she mumbles, allowing herself a moment to nestle into Tiki’s shoulder. She knows that later the older woman will tease her for it, will tell her how differently she acts when she knows that she can afford to be vulnerable. Tharja knows that the way she once appeared has never been synonymous with the truth of her existence, so she doesn’t mind the teasing if it means that now, if only for a little while, she can be a child in Tiki’s arms, and can cry out her problems from the heart, the way she’d never been able to do in their war-torn world.

 

 

The conversation ends up being much longer and much more emotionally draining than Tharja had anticipated, and they have to take a break for dinner before Tharja is able to finish detailing all of her issues. When she’s done, she sits sullenly on one side of Tiki’s bed, directly across from the manakete. Tharja sighs once, then twice, and then looks up, offering the other woman her problems and asking for the once-Voice’s prudence in deciding her next course of action.   

“So…to recap,” says Tiki, leaning forward to play with Tharja’s dark bangs, “Robin seems to be flirting with you, and you’re not quite sure how to deal with it. You want to be with her, as we all know…but the position in which you find yourself is particularly problematic.” Tharja holds back a few snarky words at Tiki’s short summing up of the pressing concern in her life at the moment. It makes everything seem all the more simple, and once again Tharja has to remind herself that some people have the amazing ability _not_ to get bogged down in all the nitty gritty details and the damned emotions that have so often clouded Tharja’s judgement where Robin is concerned.

“Am I pathetic?” Tharja hopes that Tiki won’t answer that, but she certainly thinks that she _sounds_ pathetic, at least.

“She’s your student, Tharja,” says Tiki with gravity in her voice. Tharja prepares herself to hear that now, once more, she will have to let go of Robin. This is not their time. Tiki’s cool hand lifts the bangs from Tharja’s forehead, and it feels strangely maternal. “But more importantly than that, she is the great love of your life, Tharja. Though the timing is poor as of right now, I would advise you not to throw away this time’s chance so readily.”

“But how can I…it wouldn’t be moral.”

“Not at this current point in time, no, but there are things you can do in the mean time,” Tiki says kindly, and Tharja feels confusion rend her thoughts further asunder. What can Tiki possibly mean? This is not what she’d been expecting to hear.

“Tiki I—

“Just…ask yourself, how did you feel today, without her there in front of you?”

 _Lonely_. “What does that—

Tiki shakes her head. “You’ve always been much smarter than people gave you credit for, Tharja, especially where Robin is concerned. Things will work itself out, you’ll see. You said it yourself, she used Maribelle as a mouthpiece to send you a message. Just…trust in time, Tharja.” Things will all work themselves out eventually…I feel it.”

Tharja has always trusted Tiki’s feelings, her intuitions and her predictions, but now…well, now she just doesn’t know. “For how much longer will I be forced to wander aimlessly through this world, Tiki?”

Tiki leans forward again and Tharja welcomes the hug, though with less affection than she’d shown earlier in the evening. “Things will work out for you, Tharja. Have faith in your love for Robin, if nothing else.”

Faith in her love for Robin. Tharja doesn’t even know if she’s sure what love is, but thinking of Robin, she can only hope that Tiki is right.

 

 

 

Her heart, for the first time in a long time, beats strongly in her chest.                                                                                                                                            


	11. Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja Makes A Mistake (Part I).

Tharja is slightly on edge for the rest of the week. It’s something of a shameful point, now that she thinks of it, but after leaving Tiki’s room she’d gone to ask every other member of the household what they thought of the matter, to similar effect. Even Nah, who understands Tharja and Robin’s past relationship the least, seems to think that it would be unwise for Tharja to let go so easily, this time around.

As a result, she anticipates Robin’s return to the classroom with nervous excitement, and is ashamed of herself for feeling like a giddy schoolgirl. Realistically she knows that there are other things she should be worried about. For instance, she knows that she’ll have to...interact more with her other (not as interesting) students this week.

The increasingly long, frantic emails she’s been getting indicate that many of them have only just realized that their first major assignment for the class is due in a week. Tharja curses softly, in the Old Tongue that she’s secretly much more fluent in than any of the other “linguistic” professors—except, obviously, for Tiki and Nowi—because if she has to read one more email about a student needing an extension because they “uh…don’t really know what to write about” she’s going to lose it. Just go absolutely mental all over the place.

 _Like how you did to that desert tribe…_ she growls at herself, because _why_ would she even have to bring that up now, of all times?

“Hi Tharja! Did you m—are you…okay?” Robin’s voice is so concerned, so sweet-sounding, that Tharja almost throws herself at her student for comfort. Luckily she’s not completely unaware of her surroundings, so instead she tilts her head back as smoothly as she can, pleased that she doesn’t have to force a smile for Robin. That comes naturally enough, even after all this time.

“I’m fine, Robin. Just…thinking. Anyway, how was the party?” Is that an appropriate question to ask a student? Probably not. Not if she’s the one technically initiating the conversation proper, which is exactly what’s happening at this very moment. They’re not peers; the lines that separate them are very clearly drawn and yet...

 

 

Tharja has crossed lines for Robin before, and Naga knows she would do it again.

 

 

“Went well,” says Robin, tossing her bag into her chair before turning back to Tharja. Loose, wavy twin-tails of soft-looking white hair sway as Robin smiles at Tharja, bouncing on the balls of her feet. The older—so much older—woman remembers Morgan and Noire imitating their tactically-minded mother in that respect: they’d never seemed to stand still either.

 

Between the three of them she’d never really noticed it, but now, with Robin in isolation, it makes her heart hurt just a little.

 

“I’m sure Mrs. Faulkner loved the surprise,” she says, trying to replace her smile with a more neutral one. Yes, good, redirect the conversation to your other student’s _adult_ parent. Better, yes, more degrees of separation even if the topic is still mostly personal.

Robin’s grin is so cute that Tharja can’t help but want to swoon. “Oh, yeah! It was pretty great. I mean, I don’t think she was really surprised. She’s too clever not to have noticed, but she _acted_ really surprised anyway, which was nice.”

Tharja is about to say more, glad that they haven’t lost ease of communication in spite of an entire week of not seeing each other. Robin’s eyes are so lovely, focused on Tharja as she prepares to speak, and the dark-haired woman can’t stop herself from staring. She leans forward without really meaning to, pleased when Robin’s body mimics hers, but Cordelia and Olivia’s entrance into the room forces her to put her actions in check. Tharja leans back, away from this young woman, this student. She knows what her family’s thoughts on the matter are, but it still feels strange, looking at Robin as her lover now that Robin has been her student for so long.

Shouldn’t it feel more _right_ than this?

It would be wonderful to have Robin back in her arms after all these years, but immoral, and Tharja can hardly believe it herself but she’s become something of a goody-two-shoes in the last hundred years or so, so bringing that up now seems almost impossible. Instead she tries her best to include Olivia and Cordelia in the conversation, asking them how their mother’s party was. They repeat what she’s already heard from Robin before adding in funny anecdotes of their own. Olivia stutters less, and is able to look Tharja in the eye for about half a minute before looking away, and whatever happened at the party was clearly very good for the pinkette to be this open to talking about it.

Tharja lets them speak, trying not to look as if she’s scrutinizing them too intensely. She can’t remember ever feeling so comfortable in a room with Olivia and Cordelia, especially not with Robin also present, but current circumstances being what they are it does make sense. This isn’t Ylisse as she knew it, and these aren’t her fellow soldiers. She’s not competing for her wife’s attention with two women who, in her own mind, are better-suited to Robin than herself.

Even if it’s truer now than it ever was before.

“Tharja?” Olivia’s sweet, light voice welcomes her back into the conversation at hand, guiding her perhaps without meaning to.

“Sorry, what?”

Robin’s smile is downright mischievous when she looks at Tharja, dark eyes teasing the older woman for her inattention. “I was just wondering,” she says with an air of feigned nonchalance that Tharja remembers all too well, “Did you miss us?”

 _Mostly you, by the Gods how I’ve missed you._ “The class did surprisingly well in discussion, though your input was certainly missed.” That’s a good, safe, appropriate answer. Tharja pats herself on the back for that, mentally of course, and yet the sight of Robin’s puffed-out cheeks—rather reminiscent of the Exalt’s younger sister, actually—is just so cute that she can’t help the soft smile that appears on her face. To her surprise, this seems to catch Cordelia and Olivia’s interests, and the two adoptive sisters share a look that Tharja could never hope to decipher.

Robin, however, seems to have a better idea of what they’re trying to say to each other. This becomes clear when she looks away from them and back to Tharja, and the puffiness in her cheeks has been replaced by her trademark, too-flirty-for-her-own-good, know-it-all grin. “So you missed our _input_? Surely Maribelle was an active participant though, right, Tharja?”

Tharja doesn’t know why Robin’s voice sounds a little different—she doesn’t know how, but it does—but she doesn’t like where the conversation is heading. Robin had always been good at disarming Tharja with the simplest tricks, a skill she had developed after learning that the more complex ploys often failed due to Tharja’s protective wards in place against coercion and complicated deceits. Now that those wards are gone, well, Tharja doesn’t mean to belittle herself, but she’s become rather easy to lead as she’s aged.

 

It’s almost as if Robin knows that.

 

Tharja mumbles something in the affirmative and prays that Robin will leave her alone for now, struggling to keep her voice as neutral (and even disinterested) as possible. It works, or at least seems to work, and even though Robin looks disappointed Tharja can’t help but feel a small sense of joy at her accomplishment. She doesn’t want to have to shut Robin’s playfulness down, but this is neither the time nor the place for this flirtation.

It doesn’t help that Cordelia and Olivia aren’t even trying to hide their interest in the current proceedings, if their little grins are anything to go by.

Tharja wills herself into continuing the conversation as politely as possible. Robin makes more than one attempt to draw out a more playful side of her now-disinterested professor, but the dark-haired woman, though it pains her to do it, deflects every attempt at flirting.  Even when Maribelle joins them and—inexplicably—attempts to help her friend’s advances along, Tharja holds firm. Tiki’s words rattle around in her brain, but she is steadfast in her resolve not to pay more than the most minimal attention to Robin and her ridiculously cute attempts at getting Tharja’s attention back.

She has to teach in ten minutes. She’s sure that there will be numerous complaints about the essay, and not-so-thinly-veiled requests for extensions or, at the very least, essay topics. Tharja can’t afford to be thinking about Robin, talking to her and just _looking_ at her standing there in her scandalously cut sweater, beautiful hair framing her beautiful face and— _well fuck_. So…she’s screwed.

“Tharja? Are you okay?”

“Yes, sorry, what was it?” The look on Robin’s face tells her that the white-haired girl doesn’t believe her flimsy cover-up for a second, but with a sigh of relief she also notices that Robin seems to be willing to let it go. For now, at least.

“I was just saying that I know that you’ll be busy throughout class today, but I just had one last little thing I wanted to clarify with you before I hand in my paper. Would it be okay if I spoke with you in your office? You know, after class?”

Tharja almost immediately gets the feeling that this conversation won’t be about the essay at all, but she can’t deny a student a request like that. She nods, slowly, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks and the sweat forming on her brow as she watches Robin’s smile slowly morph into something that she hopes she’s not seeing. It’s the smile Robin had often worn after winning something off of someone else without the other person knowing it, and in this situation it makes Tharja feel more uncomfortable than anything else.

If it weren’t for the rest of the students, most of whom rush in with panicked expressions, Tharja would leave the room. But she can’t. She has a job to do. The way that Robin and the rest of the female Shepherds whisper amongst themselves all through the day’s discussion does nothing to make doing that job any easier, however; and Tharja is suddenly apprehensive of what’s to come as soon as this class finishes.

Whatever Robin _really_ wants to talk about, she has a feeling it won’t be good. _Or maybe it will be_. She doesn’t know which thought scares her more.

 

***

 

Tharja doesn’t know why _she_ feels nervous as she opens the door to her office and slides into the familiarity of the room. Robin follows closely behind her, backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Have a seat Robin,” Tharja says, trying her best not to look at the younger woman.

“Thank you,” says Robin. She sits, placing her backpack on the floor by her side, and before saying anything else she’s pulled out a stapled packet of papers with pen marks all over it, placing it on the table with a small smile.

For lack of a better word, Tharja is surprised. She’s known some diligent students in her time teaching, but this is like nothing she’s ever encountered before. Well, that, and she’d half expected Robin to pull some sort of flirty gesture out of thin air. “Is this your essay, Robin?”

“Yeah,” says Robin with a sheepish grin on her face. “I’ve tried looking it over so many times, and Cordelia even helped me edit, but it just doesn’t seem to be working out. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“May I take a look?”

“Of course,” Robin says. “That’s why I brought it out.”

Tharja laughs and takes the essay into her hands. There are notes scribbled on the pages, two distinct, fine handwriting styles running across each other to form an editorial dialogue that Tharja feels is almost too sophisticated to have taken place between two second-year students. The language is so clearly Robin and Cordelia, however, that Tharja only has these doubts for a few seconds before she clears her thoughts from her head and goes into “Professor Mode”.

Between them, Robin and Cordelia have already managed to clean out the majority of the most problematic issues with Robin’s paper, and all in all it is rather good, if a bit patchy in some places where the lack of information is marked with a small “insert citation here”. Tharja makes a few extra notes here and there with her pen, barely noticing the way that Robin is looking at her.

She can still _feel_ it of course, but she hasn’t looked up from the paper in her hands since she started. It’s a skill she’s picked up over the years. Robin’s breathing catches once or twice, but it is clear that the white-haired woman doesn’t wish to break Tharja’s concentration. The only sounds Tharja can hear are the faint rustles of clothing that accompany the up-and-down motions of breathing, the constant, low ticking of her clock, the faint footsteps and conversations taking place just outside her door.

And a strange soft tapping that seems oddly familiar, but Tharja can’t quite place the sound and editing Robin’s essay is more important to her than doing so.

About halfway through she notices a citation that strikes her as oddly familiar. It’s from one of her earlier papers, credited to “Noirgan, Syalla” and she can’t help the small squeak of recognition that fights its way out into the world. Robin’s eyes snap up from her lap, and she makes a hasty move to readjust the hem of her sweater before waving a concerned hand in front of Tharja’s eyes. “Are you okay, Tharja?”

“Y-yes,” she starts. “I see you’ve cited a few articles by Syalla Noirgan.”

Robin’s concern takes a few—blissful—moments to dissipate, but when it does it is replaced with some of her familiar charm. “Oh, yes. She just seemed to know so much about everything, history-wise, so I figured it would be a shame not to cite her. She was definitely a very smart woman.” There’s a pause, and then the playfulness flares behind Robin’s dark eyes and she says, “Like you, Tharja.”

Tharja refuses to allow the warmth she feels in her chest to fester for long. “Thank you, Robin. It does make sense, considering she was my grandmother.”

The white-haired girl doesn’t seem at all surprised by the news; Tharja notes that it would be difficult not to notice the matching surnames. Robin smiles a patient smile, one Tharja doesn’t know that she’s seen before, and then Robin speaks. “So…my essay?”

“Wonderfully written, though you’re right, it feels as if something is…off. I can’t quite place it, but if you would like, we can go through it together, now, and see if we can’t sort things out.”

Once again, Tharja has to stop a moment to marvel at how easily Robin can pull the words from her lips. Speaking with anybody else outside of her family is often a task that requires a heroic amount of concentration, and Tharja has never considered herself much of a hero.

Robin plays around with a few strands of white hair before nodding, almost coquettishly—though Tharja feels badly for thinking something like that about _her student_. She tells herself that this is a test of her resolve, and nothing more. All that she has to do is keep the lines of professionalism clearly drawn, and everything will be fine.

 

***

 

They’ve been at their combined editing effort for almost an hour when Tharja notices just how _warm_ it seems to be in her office. Not that she’s anywhere near the basement’s furnaces. In fact, she doesn’t recall a time when her office was ever this warm, and that’s both concerning and yet, oddly, not exactly what she’s been focused on.

Robin’s sweater is cut in such a way that makes the lighting hit her— _gods,_ but she feels depraved just thinking such thoughts. Tharja almost slaps a palm to her forehead, holding herself back out of some strange sense of self-control, and it is only when Robin looks up that the dark-haired woman realizes how far out they’re both leaning over the table.

True, she’s wanted to be reunited with Robin for so long that she doesn’t doubt that her love for her wife has already metamorphosed into a full-blown obsession, but Tharja doesn’t care about that. Naga wouldn’t have given her this chance if she thought that Tharja was undeserving of it. Of all the things that Tharja has learned about Naga through the ever-changing seasons of her life, it is that Tiki’s mother has never acted without considering all or most of the possible repercussions of her choice. She’d explained as much to Tharja after plucking her out of that godforsaken desert.

Tharja fights her eyes’ urges to fixate on Robin’s face, and she hears herself muttering something about moving a semicolon over a bit. Robin responds to her nitpicking with good humour, and makes a few points of her own. The once-sorceress thinks that though this is painful, she could get used to this kind of relationship with Robin. It’s far from ideal, and limited to this and any other classes Robin might happen to take with her in the future—perhaps a few more years together if Robin specializes or advances her studies post-grad—but if this is all she’s going to get, well, Tharja welcomes it.

They’re so close that Tharja knows instinctively that it would only take a slight movement forward and their lips would be touching, but Robin is her student, _her student Gods damn it all_ , and she is a professor who will not take advantage of a young woman over whom she holds a position of authority. It isn’t moral, it’s barely legal, and it couldn’t possibly be as right as Tharja feels it would be.

And then Robin leans forward herself, lips soft and sweet, and Tharja wants to die, just a little.


	12. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja Makes A Mistake (Part 2).

Warm. So warm. Tharja is warm all over and she relishes the feeling of it. But she can’t. This is wrong. So wrong. She doesn’t know how it happened, but Robin is kneeling over her, half-sitting, half-lying on Tharja’s desk. Her own body is leaned as close to Robin as possible.

One of Robin’s hands twines itself in Tharja’s hair and Tharja half-moans, half-sighs; it’s been so long and this is everything she’s spent the last hundred or so years hoping for. Wishing for. Her back aches just a little with the awkwardness of their position, but one of her own hands finds its place on Robin’s shoulder and she can’t bring herself to care.

But they can’t be doing this.                 

She knows they can’t be doing this.

Instinct kicks in and Tharja knows that she’s probably going to regret this for as long as she lives—and who knows how long that will be, at this rate—but she has to end this. She can’t ruin Robin’s life. Not again. She’s done it so many times already that it’s beginning to seem like that’s about all she can do for this woman, this person, this _soul_ whom she loves more than she loves herself.

With great difficulty she backs out of Robin’s embrace, removing her hand from the younger woman’s shoulder after making sure that she won’t fall over. Robin still half-kneels across the dark wood, body almost arched towards her like something out of the type of unsavoury “film” that Tharja most certainly has never watched.

“Robin…we shouldn’t have done that _._ ” It sounds silly, coming out of her mouth, but it’s the only way she can think of opening up this particular path of conversation.

She forces herself to keep a smile off her face as she levels her eyes to Robin’s. The younger woman seems dazed, too dazed to speak at least for a few seconds. In that time Tharja admires the slight swelling on Robin’s lips—she hopes she hasn’t come off as too desperate but _gods above_ she’s wanted that for ages. Then Robin does speak and Tharja is at once needy, but held back by duty; desperate, but struggling against desperation. “Why not? Did you…not enjoy that?” She looks so disappointed in herself.

“I—that’s not the point,” says Tharja, who can’t bring herself to lie even though it would be the quickest way out of this mess she’s gotten herself into.

“Then what is it?” asks Robin, backing off the desk. Even with the expanse of dark wood directly between them it's as if she's still in Tharja's space.

“This kind of behaviour…is inappropriate. I’m your _teacher_ , Robin. I should never have done something like that with you.”

“I’m not a child, Tharja,” Robin huffs loudly, her puffed out cheeks once again reminding Tharja of the young princess of Ylisse... _Lissa._  

Tharja has to fight back a saucy reply because, if she’s being honest with herself, Robin cannot be anything _but_ a child compared to her. The many, many times she’s watched Robin live and die have aged Tharja much further than the years have aged her body, and she is old, old, so very old. “Legally, you may be an adult, but you are still my student, Robin. This is _illegal_.” Or at the very least, unethical, but the more she amps up the severity of what they’ve done, the more it will deter Robin.

 

At least, Tharja hopes that’s what this will do.

 

“Who would know?” Robin’s lips form a petulant pout, one that Tharja remembers as having been distinctly annoying, even on her perfect wife. There’s just something so childish about the gesture that Tharja had always endeavoured to keep that pout off her wife’s lips; or at the very least, to find the fastest way to get rid of it whenever it chanced to appear. She has to check herself against smiling at the memory of some of her old methods…

Not that any of them would have suited this purpose, however, which is to stress to Robin that something like those kisses they’ve just shared— _those wonderful, perfect, long-anticipated kisses—_ could never happen between them again.

“We would know, Robin, and it wouldn’t…it would be difficult for the both of us, for one thing,” says Tharja. In her head, she’s slightly ashamed that to this day, she still cannot manage to muster up the will to shut Robin down completely.

Robin shakes her head, though her tone of voice betrays little of the childishness that her pouting face conveys. “You want this too, Tharja. I felt you kiss me back. You can’t deny that.”

“And I’m not trying to!” _Shit._

Robin’s pout turns into a small, almost feral grin and Tharja panics internally because it has now become clear that Robin won’t give up without a hell of a fight. Tharja doesn’t know if she’ll make it out of this one alive. Her head and her heart are on completely different sides of this issue, making matters all the more complicated, and Tharja really, really just wishes that Naga’s gift made it possible for her to die.

“See?” For a second Tharja gets a glimpse of how young Robin really is inside, without her bravado and her charm and her impossibly advanced intelligence. She’s so young, so very confident in the beauty of the world. While it isn’t clear if Robin is aware of just how much she is loved by the woman before her, it doesn’t matter. Underneath the poorly concealed lust in Robin’s eyes is a hint of genuine feeling, the innocent affections of a young woman who has yet to be stung by love’s cruelty.

The last thing Tharja wants to do is taint that innocence, but the world is not so kind as many would wish it to be. What Robin thinks would be an impossibly romantic love affair would be a social nightmare, with emotional, societal, and financial repercussions to match; and that would only be the beginning. Tharja strengthens her resolve against Robin’s charming, affectionate grin. “Robin, stop this. Please.”

“I don’t know what it is about you, Tharja, but you’re not like…anyone else.” Tharja knows that it would be easiest to come out with the truth and deal with the fallout, that that would be the best way to stop this from happening, but she can’t do it. She can’t wilfully ruin this even though it would be better for all involved for her to do so.

“You should maybe try…dating women your own age. Or men, if you wanted. Anyone, really. Whoever you think could you happy.”

The shake of the head that accompanies Robin’s next words is particularly aggressive, almost offended. “I want _you_. You could make me happy, couldn’t you?” Robin’s tone toes the line between teasing and pleading, but Tharja stiffens her upper lip. This is not going well. If Robin’s exasperation is peaking, the only thing she has to show for it is a drawn-out sigh. “Look…I’ve never felt this way about anybody I’ve ever met before, Tharja.”

“You’re nineteen. There are many, many more people still to come into your life, Robin. Don’t stick yourself with somebody like me…I’m too old for you.”

“That’s barely an applicable argument! There are happy couples with wider age gaps than the eight years that separate you and I.” _More like eighteen hundred and something years, my love._ “And some of them started out in more precarious positions than the one we’re in right now!”

Tharja has to suppress a laugh. She can’t remember Robin ever being this insistent in making their relationship work; not that there is currently a relationship to speak of, in the romantic sense.

Their kisses weigh heavily on Tharja’s mind as she watches Robin, who is now leaning over the desk. Robin’s hands are planted palm-flat, pale skin contrasting sharply with the dark wood, and Tharja forces herself to stare at the desk and not at the girl, no, the young woman whose eyes fix her to the spot with such self-convinced passion that Tharja can almost feel it in the air.

“You and I were meant to be together, I can feel it,” says Robin, and the bare-faced belief in her voice reaches straight into Tharja’s chest to fan the flames of irrationality that have begun to circle her heart. She can’t. They can’t.

She just wants Robin back.

“You’re _nineteen_ , Robin, you can’t possibly know that.”

“Why do you keep on coming back to my age, Tharja? Is it that much of a stumbling block for you? I know I’m younger, but I _am_ a legal adult fully capable of making my own choices, and I choose you…do you not want me at all?”

She knows that her response is poor, and will be ignored or tossed aside, but Tharja forces herself to say the words that are waiting on her lips. “Robin, leave this alone.”

Robin doesn’t budge an inch, instead shaking her head again, more fiercely than before. “I won’t.”

“ _Why_ do you insist on this?” Tharja knows that half of it must be because she has yet to actually give a firm denial but she has to ask.

Robin’s reply, however, is a surprise. “Have you ever had dreams that you felt weren’t dreams? I didn’t used to, but recently, after meeting you, I’ve had them every now and again. And in some of them, well, you’re there. I don’t understand them much, not yet, but Tharja, I feel like you were…like you _are_ a part of me. Why can’t you see that? Do you not…think I’m attractive? Is that it?”

Tharja almost breaks at the self-hatred in Robin’s voice, and she brings herself to look up to find that the defiance in Robin’s gaze has begun to wither, but only slightly. “Not at all…you’re beautiful, Robin,” she says, perhaps more warmly than she should have. “But beauty aside, I can’t jeopardize my job for this…I can’t have my reputation, _and yours_ thrown down the drain for…for something we don’t know will last. Your dreams are certainly interesting, but they don’t mean anything…” She wants to tell Robin just how much those dreams, those memories, mean _everything_ , but she just can’t.

Looking at Robin now, seeing everything that the young woman has to offer the world, Tharja knows that she’s wrong to want to keep Robin for herself; to want to have her back. There will be other choices, other women who will bring out the best in Robin, will push her forward, will share in a beautiful life together. Tharja doesn’t belong here. Not here, in this office, or here, in this institution, and not here, in this city. She doesn’t belong in this _world_ anymore, and she can’t tie Robin’s fate to hers again.

Just look at how that ended up for them the first time.

She squares her shoulders and fights the stinging feeling in her heart as she repeats, “They don’t mean anything, Robin.”

“How can you say that when you haven’t even _seen_ them? Tharja, I don’t understand. I thought…Cordy said…”

 _Of course Cordelia knew._ All of the looks, all of the whispers. That hadn’t been flirtation. That had been Cordelia telling Robin what she’d noticed about Tharja’s stupidly obvious behaviour. “I don’t know what you and your friends may have thought, Robin, but I am your professor. It is true that you and your friends are rather fun to speak with, and I do like you all more than I do the average student, but that is all. It is nothing more than that.”

Not in this lifetime, at least.

Robin’s face, which until now has been only slightly flushed, is at once awash in colour, and there are tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Her pout has smoothened itself out, and she is picturesque. For one so young, Robin seems to have caught at the very essence of sadness: Tharja sees it in the younger woman’s eyes. Pure sadness, but not the elegant kind Tharja had once seen on the face of the Exalt before she gave her life for peace—it is a child’s sadness, the disappointment of youthful expectations; the sadness of a hopeful love, crushed.

“You’re wrong, Tharja.”

Tharja would be lying to herself to say that the iron in Robin’s voice is not a surprise. She had not expected that the younger woman would be quite so stubborn—her own Robin had had her moments, yes, but she had always given way unless she… “You really think this is some sort of destiny?”

The look in Robin’s eyes is answer enough, but the white-haired girl adds her voice to her conviction and says, “I _know_ it is. Give this a chance, _please_.”

Once again, Tharja is caught within herself. She could claim Robin right here, right now, in this office, and worry about all the repercussions later. It would be nothing more than a matter of re-claiming her wife, re-claiming a woman she has searched for through the changing centuries. It would be right. It would be what she’s lived this unnaturally prolonged life to achieve.

But she just…can’t, and though she hates what she’s about to do she also knows that ultimately, this is what is best for Robin.

With startling clarity, Tharja comes to terms with the reality of her situation and falls back into her chair as if struck. She has been _so_ selfish. She has chased Robin through the centuries, lifetime after lifetime, and more often than not, she’s made major decisions in Robin’s life, and all without telling Robin the truth. She’s interfered too much.

That must end.

 

 

It ends now.

“Robin, that is enough. Please leave my office. I am willing to look past this, out of respect for you as a student and as a person, but if you don’t leave right now I will be forced to—Robin, please, I can’t do this… _please_ I—

She doesn’t know what it is about her appeal that gets to Robin, but something in her voice breaks and Tharja feels tears falling rapidly from her eyes. The younger woman is visibly startled, and sympathetic tears mimic those on her not-truly-lover’s face. She reaches out a hand, only for Tharja to turn away from it.

She can’t look at Robin.

“Tharja, I—

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say. Just go.”

From the sounds coming from just across her desk, Tharja can tell that Robin is preparing to leave. The whispers of paper being put back into a folder are silenced by the soft sound of said folder closing. Robin’s zipper catches just a little at the beginning before following through its course smoothly, and Tharja releases a shaking breath.

“Tharja…I—I’m sorry. Not for kissing you but…for making you unhappy. It was selfish of me to think…I mean, I stand by what I said, but if you don’t see me that way I can’t do anything. I’m sorry for not thinking about what this would mean for your position. I’ll go now.”

Tharja bites her lip, eyes still focused on the corner of her office. She could tell Robin that everything is fine, that it isn’t that big of a deal, that there isn’t a problem. She could make a sorry attempt at a joke, or perhaps try to at least end the afternoon on a better note than this…but. She can’t.

She can’t give Robin that hope, because that would be giving some hope back to herself.

 

She can’t make things better when they aren’t going well anymore.

 

She can’t do this.

 

She can’t.

 

Tharja waits until the lock on her door clicks shut before she releases the anguished, moaning sob she’s been holding in for the longest time. She doesn’t care if Robin is waiting just outside, just in case Tharja has changed her mind. She wouldn't. She can't. The pain is too great. She can’t bear it.

An irritating buzzing sound reaches her ears and instinctively she reaches for the phone in her pocket. In spite of her current state, she needs to answer this call. It could be Nah, wondering why she isn’t home yet because Tharja had stupidly forgotten to text her.

“H-hello?” There’s the distinct sound of people chatting, light footsteps, and the rustling of a jacket.

“What’s wrong? Tharja, _where are you_? I’m at the university, are you here? ARE YOU INJURED? _Who am I gonna have to cut?_ ”

“Anna? I-I’m in my office.” She hates the pathetic sound of her own whining, mewling voice. She’s too old to be acting like this, like a baby without any sense of how to act in a public—or at least, semi-public—setting. “Anna?” The sound of the rustling jacket quickens, and the footsteps increase in volume and intensity. It sounds like Anna’s running, and Tharja almost wants to tell the other woman not to worry so much, but it would be pointless.

There’s a muffled sound from Anna’s end that sounds suspiciously like “Robin?”, and then Anna is there and Tharja is curled up in a pathetic little ball on her chair, mewling like an injured animal and holding one hand melodramatically over her heart. Gods she hates this. This is embarrassing. Even after all this time it can be difficult for Tharja to allow her family to see her this way, but she has no choice in the matter at this particular point in time.

Besides, sending Anna away would only make her feel worse.

“I’m sorry,” says Tharja, but she’s not quite sure why she’s apologizing, really, only that she needs to say it to somebody and Anna is who’s in front of her right now. “I’m so sorry.”

“Tharja, what happened? I saw Robin…did something happen with Robin?”

Tharja is too ashamed of herself to respond as she accepts the comfort of Anna’s arms. The redhead doesn’t grumble about having to lean over Tharja in this strange position, rubbing a soothing hand down the dark-haired woman’s back. She murmurs softly, words of comfort rolling off her tongue with more ease than one would expect from somebody as dynamic and merchandising as Anna.

“Look, you wait here, I’m going to go down the hall, and grab you a glass of water. And maybe a bit of paper towel, so we can clean you up a little.”

Tharja doesn’t protest. She can feel the beginnings of a headache appearing just behind her eyes and her stomach lurches. With some difficulty she manages to pull herself into a more upright position, and once she’s straightened her spine she focuses on taking deep, calming breaths. _In…out…relax._ It’s difficult, but by the time Anna reappears Tharja feels a slight return to normalcy.

“Thank you,” she manages to say. Anna just smiles softly and holds out a paper cup filled with water, which Tharja accepts with the slightest trace of sheepishness in her eyes. She hadn’t been much of a crier in the early days, only during times of great distress, but in the more recent years she’s fallen into the awful habit of crying herself to sleep for no apparent reason. More often than not, it’s Anna who…does things like this.

“Not a problem. What’s family for, right?” Anna begins to pack away Tharja’s things as the dark-haired woman wipes at her ruined makeup and finishes her cup of water. By the time she’s done and looking halfway presentable, Anna has cleaned up and even managed to set her desk to rights again.

“Not quite a million bucks, but good enough,” says Anna after giving Tharja a once-over. “Let’s go home. I suspect you’ve got some…things to talk about.”

 

Tharja just nods; she can’t bring herself to protest.

 

It’s true, after all, no matter how hard she wishes it wasn’t.

 


	13. Flux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anna takes over and Tharja runs.

It’s cowardly, and she knows it, but Tharja passes on responsibility of her tutorial to Anna. It isn’t as if she’s trying to run away from her responsibilities—though admittedly she _is_ running from something…someone. It’s just that this is what she has to do.

 

She’s already making it harder on herself by only giving up Tiki’s tutorial, as opposed to just passing all of her classes on to Anna as precedent would suggest she do.

 

Without so much as a joke or quip about Tharja’s situation Tiki smoothens out most of the proceedings, abusing her power as head of the department more than once much to Tharja’s eternal gratitude and temporary chagrin. It’s not that she doesn’t want to feel indebted to Tiki—she’s past that—it’s just that Tiki shouldn’t have to be dealing with this on top of everything else she already has to deal with in her life.

Tharja hates to feel like a bother. If she had the authority, she would go right up to the dean all by herself and just lay out her plan for him to sign off on…but of course it doesn’t work out that way.

The scheduled talks with the dean are a harrowing process in spite of the quick movement of the bureaucratic wheels—thanks in no small part to Tiki and her influence—and by the end of the week Tharja finds herself with one less class to worry about and one more family member to commute to and from work with. Luckily enough, Anna _had_ listened all those years back when Tiki, Nowi, and Tharja had opted to formally study their history, and her degrees, philanthropic work at the museum, and past experience teaching at the university level (admittedly some fifty or so years ago, but forgery is insultingly easy for everybody’s combined residual magic) is more than enough to convince the dean to turn the tutorial over to the lively redhead.

 

Either that or it’s the winks that Anna sends the old man’s way during their meetings that eventually break him down.

 

Come Monday, Tharja feels slightly more at ease than she had directly following the events of last Wednesday. Every so often she hears a hesitant knock on her door and against her curiosity she stays seated, working through the transfer paperwork and making sure that everything Anna needs is up-to-date and ready for use. Though she doubts that universities outside of Ylisstol do this, she knows that the dean is expecting Anna to be using her office, and sure enough when she leaves for the day there’s a small, temporarily affixed marker on the door outside, just underneath her own name.

 

 

It makes her feel more comfortable than it rightly should.

 

 

Tuesday is uneventful, but on Wednesday afternoon _it_ begins. She receives plenty of confused emails from students, the Shepherds most persistent of all, but she ignores them to the best of her ability. Unbeknown to them she’s only a few floors away, locked up in her office as she struggles to get ahead in the lesson plans for her remaining classes.

She moves her office hours around much to the delight of the students in her upper-year courses, and does her best not to linger on campus, especially not in open spaces. When she absolutely _must_ be out in the open, it’s always in the company of Nowi, or Anna, or Tiki—more by their insistence than her agreement. On their part, they make it absolutely clear that they won’t leave her alone, but she gets the feeling that there is something they aren’t telling her. Sure, they don’t outright exclude her from anything, and their life and schedule functions largely as it had before all of this, but…

The whispers and the furtive glances become noticeable after she learns to watch for them, and she knows without question that they’ve been discussing…her. Tharja can’t help but dislike the feelings that her family’s shared secrecy leave her with. Nah is the only one who manages to meet her eyes regularly, and the entire situation is bizarre and uncomfortable. There really is something that they aren’t sharing.

Fair enough…there are some things she hasn’t been telling them, either.

The entire truth of what happened with Robin, for starters.

 

***

 

She brings it up with Nowi about three weeks before the winter holidays begin, seeking the older woman out at the parking lot on a day when Nowi would normally be the last person home. Though it might have been easier to just start in on Anna during their shared time at the office, the redhead is still infuriatingly difficult to pry secrets from, and Tharja doesn’t want yet another reason to suffer headaches when she has other routes to knowledge available. After all, when she wants information with minimal effort, Nowi is and always has been the best option.

“There’s something you three aren’t telling me.”

Nowi’s violet eyes widen to the point that she looks more like her old, younger self than her new, older self. It’s less jarring now than it used to be, but the memory pangs still hurt Tharja just a little bit. “Tharja! I thought you went home hours ago!” Nowi’s strained smile falls between frantic and strangely calm, and to say that Tharja is weirded out is a gross understatement. _Just what is going on?_

“Please, Nowi, if something is wrong, I need you to tell me.” And she does, she really does. Their family has worked so well for the last two millennia (or close enough to that) because they have an open, honest relationship in place. There are very few secrets. To even think that there is something her family isn’t telling her bothers Tharja more than she would like to admit.

The look in Nowi’s eyes says that she understands, but she doesn’t say anything for a while, instead opening the car door and sliding into the driver’s seat. She waits until Tharja has slipped into the passenger’s seat and then there is a strange moment of silence that makes Tharja more uneasy than it should. When Nowi eventually opens her mouth to speak her voice is soft and slow, deliberate. “We’re worried about you, Tharja. It…well it might be helpful for you to take the rest of the school year off.”

“But—

“If you’re worried about your classes, Anna can take care of everything. She’s a good teacher, Tharja. Besides, you could always keep up correspondence with your thesis students through emails and stuff, or come in and see them if they really need you. You could say it’s a sabbatical, or a family emergency, or anything, really. Your students would understand.”

 _Tell that to the emails cluttering my inbox,_ she wants to say, but Nowi doesn’t deserve that kind of harshness. Instead she shakes her head, partially in denial, partially in disbelief. They’ve already talked about this. They’ve already agreed that it would be best not to cause too much of a stir, and her failure to finish the school year would definitely be cause to raise more than a few eyebrows.

“We’ve already spoken to the dean.”

“It wouldn’t be difficult to get him to agree, and you know it. Tiki has him wrapped around her little finger, and it looks like Anna does too. And besides, the semester is wrapping up, there’s just exams left, and then there’s the class turnover. Your only full year courses are the thesis class and the one Anna’s already taken over.”

It’s all true, but Tharja feels the need to argue anyway. “That doesn’t matter! We already agreed that I would only be giving up the tutorial, not all of my classes.”

If Nowi is confused by the adamant tone in Tharja’s voice, she does a good job of hiding it. Instead she merely shakes her head and says, “It’s only a suggestion, Tharja. We just think you should take some time for yourself.”

“I don’t need time for myself; I just need to be doing something—my job, specifically. This job is all I’ve got aside from our family. I don’t want to lose it.”

Nowi’s answering scoff is surprisingly insensitive (for kind-hearted Nowi) but Tharja understands how ridiculous she must sound. She can’t pretend that this outburst is normal for her, after all. Nowi knows, more than anybody, how much Tharja doesn’t care about her job.

Tharja looks out at the passing traffic and sighs. She doesn’t _hate_ teaching, of course, and it can be almost…fun…at times, but that doesn’t mean that it ranks very high on her list of “Important Things in Tharja’s Life”.

Nowi takes her hand and gives it a friendly squeeze, the way she’d done when they were ages younger. It’s a quick movement, probably because Nowi is a paranoid, rigidly new-age “9 and 3” driver, but the comfort is still there, still familiar, like the half-sympathetic, half-chiding tone the manakete takes when she says, “You and I both know you couldn’t care less about this job, Tharja, but…it _will_ still be waiting for you when you get back, whenever that is. What’s really bothering you?”

 _Robin._ The thought is embarrassing, and Tharja turns away from Nowi both to allow the other woman her concentration and to think on her own for a moment. Has she truly not grown in character at all? That Robin is still her main concern—her only concern, realistically—speaks volumes to the type of person Tharja is, and she can’t say that she likes it. Her old self would have been perfectly fine with the one-track mind attitude she applied to Robin and to the world, but now that she has lived so long Tharja is ashamed of herself.

It still doesn’t change the fact that though she can’t stand to teach Robin, she can’t bear to think that she won’t see her again.

“Tharja?” Nowi’s hand is warm. “This isn’t about your job, is it?”

She shakes her head, not trusting herself to speak clearly. Though Tharja is sure she’s cried enough tears to warrant never crying again, she knows that she can’t curse her tear ducts to remain dry. Not anymore.

“It’s about Robin, isn’t it?”

“Am I that transparent?”

“…no?” Nowi offers a small smile and a shake of her head, but Tharja knows it’s solely for her benefit. Of course she’s that transparent. She always has been. It would have been foolish to believe that even all these many, many years could change that. “Okay, so yes, yeah, I guess you are…but that’s not a bad thing, Tharja.”

“Nowi,” she sighs, “My whole life revolves around a person I should have let go of a long time ago.”

Nowi shakes her head, and not for the first (or last) time, Tharja is almost embarrassed. Though Nowi has always been her elder, there was a time when their positions were reversed. Tharja used to be the mature one, the sensible one, the one to whom Nowi would run when memories of Gaius proved too painful to bear alone. _What changed?_

“This is clearly difficult for you to talk about, Tharja, so I’ll leave you alone to your thoughts and just focus on driving but…just think about what I’ve said, okay? It’s not that we don’t want you to do your job—you’re actually really good at it—but you need to take care of yourself, and staying at the university right now, well, it isn’t healthy for you.”

 

Tharja agrees to consider the suggestion, though at first she has absolutely no intention to do as they want her to. In the end, it is still her life and her choice, and it does not concern Nowi, or Tiki, or Anna at all.

 

It only comes to her later, the realization that her family must truly love her, to be this concerned in matters that don’t concern them at all.

 

***

 

In the end she fights a losing battle, and with more than a few gentle (and not so gentle) nudges from the dragonkin and Anna, she ends up taking the rest of the school year off to do “research”. Not that she actually intends to do anything of the sort, but it wouldn’t do to tell the dean that she’s leaving due to fear of succumbing to her desires for an undergraduate student with whom she’d already shared a semi-intimate moment. Research sounds much better, and besides, there are still a few research papers she’s written that are just laying around, waiting to be submitted to a review board.

 

The first few days of her “sabbatical” (as the dean had insisted on calling it) are mindless, and she does next to nothing for the most part, eating when she remembers to and staring mindlessly at the walls and ceiling of her room for the rest of the time. At least until somebody—usually Nah—comes home. In the days that follow, she accompanies Nah to the museum and helps with the logistics of a new exhibit, but the work is tedious and she really doesn’t have an eye for this sort of thing. At the very least, the constant flow of decision-making and arrangement-overseeing helps to keep her mind off of…other things.

It isn’t until a full week has passed that she realizes how much she has come to depend on her job as a source of something to do. Tharja doesn’t know what it is about this time period, but it seems to her that while working she had never had enough time, and now that she is free to do as she pleases she has nothing left to do. She misses her classes as well, in spite of herself, and though she has received numerous emails she has yet to respond to any of them.

When she does get around to responding, she answers only the three students who have chosen to work on their thesis papers under her guidance, and together they all work out individual plans: a lot of it involves video-conferencing and regular email exchange, and though she is still not truly in tune with the usage of all this technology, she knows that she will be able to figure things out. It isn’t as if she has much else to do.

 

***

 

Tharja wonders if this was truly the best decision she could have made for herself. She worries that Anna, who comes home every night looking drained and not at all the way she used to, will grow to resent her for this decision she’s made. She worries that Nowi and Tiki are secretly disappointed in her cowardice. Cowardice, yes, because what else could it have been that made her drive Robin away though the younger woman was ready to enter into something new, something different?

Though the morals of her argument still stand, Tharja knows that her heart is a hypocrite of the highest order. The long-awaited embrace in her office beckons to her in every idle moment, turning distracted thoughts into ruthlessly unrelenting periods of rumination. How long can she keep this going? How long can she be apart from Robin? How long until she begs Naga for death and prays that for once, the Divine Dragon will hear her?

It is a dark time in her life, but for once Tharja is afraid. If this cursed, eternal life was meant to be her second chance, than surely she has far exceeded the number of attempts she could have had at true love? Surely the limit has been reached, and she is doomed to wander forever, so close, but always so far. As the monotony of her days cycles in and out, unending and unchanged, Tharja feels the darkness closing in.

The unknown future awaits, and she is afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention that with the last update, this is now up to speed with what's up on fanfiction.net. Not that it really matters, just thought to let you know. Chapter 14 should be out by two weeks at the latest, due to unforseen life circumstances, but no later than that I swear!
> 
> If you want drop me a line about anything, catch me on tumblr @lazywritergirl!


	14. Flicker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja's family proves that they are the best support line she could ever have asked for.

The darkness is eventually lifted by none other than Nah, and Tharja wonders if it is that manaketes are born predisposed to higher wisdom, or if Nah is sage of mind simply because that is the kind of person she was meant to be.

 

After a hectic morning at the museum, the carrot-topped manakete manages to convince Tharja that a walk outside would be beneficial to her health. Tharja does not have the heart to disagree, and against her better judgement she throws on a light jacket and follows Nah out the door. The younger woman decides on a visit to the local park trails, and Tharja is swept along in Nah’s youthful exuberance, her thoughts pardoning Nah for this undesirable exercise due to her youth. After all, Nah has only walked the earth for two millennia, give or take some years.

 

She is youthful indeed, for a manakete.

 

Secretly Tharja is pleased to be outside, though she does her best to remain forlorn, at the very least pensive and serious. The local trails are pleasantly empty at this time of day, and the sunlight beaming through the budding trees feels better than she would like to admit. Such agreeable surroundings and company make it difficult to remain stony-faced for long, however, and Tharja finds that it is not truly so hard to relax.

Nah’s smile is an encouraging sight, and perhaps it encourages her own.

It is spring, but just barely, and soon school will be over. Tharja’s thesis students are all but finished, her research papers are slated for publishing in the coming months, and her household is full of the smiling faces of her family as they soldier on in the last weeks before final exams begin. Tiki, Nowi, and Anna have all managed to evade the responsibility of teaching summer courses and vacation plans are in the works, as they always are at this time of year. The next few months promise enjoyment with the women who have stayed by her side through the slow-moving years. Only after that will Tharja have to decide if she is ready to face the world of academia head-on again.

 

Of course, that is what she tells herself she must be ready to face. As always, it’s Robin who concerns her most.

 

“You know, Auntie Tharja, there’s something I never quite understood.” Nah’s voice is soft, filling the space between them with an air of gentleness.

Though this is far from the conversation that Tharja wants to be having right now, she obliges and tilts her face towards Nah’s, surprised that she doesn’t need to lower her eyes very far for them to meet the younger woman’s. “What would that be, Nah?”

“Why didn’t you tell Robin that if she was serious about you, she’d just have to wait until after her graduation?”

 

And just like that, Tharja realizes how ridiculous she must seem to her not-quite-niece, to her family, to the universe as a collective whole. Why _hadn’t_ she just done that? Robin is a paragon of patience, she always has been, and a matter of two years when compared to the potential for lifelong happiness would certainly have seemed to be nothing more than a small test of conviction.

Of course, she _had_ thought to suggest that Robin wait, hadn’t she? Tharja goes through that painful afternoon’s memory again and again, unsure if she is remembering events correctly, or as she wishes they had occurred.

She _hadn’t_ said anything of the sort to Robin. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind, something that embarrasses Tharja more than she feels it should. She’d simply been too focused on just getting out, too panicked to make a suitable analysis of the situation.

Regardless of the reasoning behind her omission, of course, Tharja knows that she has paid for it as a result.

It is almost as if the endless centuries have taught her nothing, and Tharja is well and thoroughly displeased with herself. She says so to Nah, adding, “If you hadn’t brought it up, I expect I wouldn’t have thought about it for a good long while.”

Nah is silent, thoughtfully so, and for a few minutes Tharja allows herself to seek some small comforts in the sounds and sights around them. She had never been one to _enjoy_ sunlit strolls, confining herself to the shadows like the stereotype of a sorceress she had once been, but this, this experience, in spite of its lack of novelty, is still strange for her. Pleasantly so, but strange nonetheless, and Tharja wonders briefly what her children would feel, seeing their cold, distant, darkness-and-hex loving mother in the airs of spring sunlight.

“You still could tell her, you know,” Nah says, catching Tharja before she can completely drift away into her reminiscent mindset. “I don’t think Robin would have ever given up so easily.”

“It isn’t that simple, Nah,” she says, trusting that the—barely—younger woman will understand, that she won’t need to elaborate further.

“And why not?”

“You remember us telling you about the conditions Naga had attached to her…gift…to me, yes?” Nah nods, prompting her to finish with her woolgathering and get straight to the point. In some ways, it amuses Tharja, the young dragonkin’s earnestness. By Tharja’s estimation, the carrot-topped half-manakete is just about twice the age that Nowi had been when she’d given birth, and only marginally older-looking. A side effect, Tharja assumes, of her human heritage. She continues speaking before Nah can question what her thoughts consist of, saying, “I worry that Robin will not be able to handle the memories that come associated with our relationship.”

“Ah,” says Nah by way of understanding, and the two continue to follow the path. There is silence for another moment as they approach a fork in the paved walkway; Tharja wonders which route Nah will choose: the more easily travelled walkway to the right, which will see them home in a matter of about ten minutes, or the more adventure-oriented path to the left, where few dare to walk unless they are young, in love, or in need of a place to sort out their thoughts.

Almost unsurprisingly to her state of mind if not to her, Tharja watches Nah’s slight figure swerve smoothly to the left. She finds herself copying the movement after only a moment’s hesitation.

“I never really understood what you all meant when you talked about your memories, Auntie Tharja,” says Nah by way of re-opening the conversation, and Tharja pauses to wonder where the youngest dragonkin could have possibly managed to pick up her serious nature; she certainly hadn’t inherited it from either of her parents, both of whom had viewed—and still view, at least in Gaius’s case—emotional maturity as an exception to their general rule of behavioural levity.

Curiosity peaked, Tharja turns back to the question, which only forces her to remain silent for a while longer out of consideration.

She wonders if Nah is ready to hear this. It isn’t as if it will particularly affect the younger woman but at the same time, the implications are a little heavy, and Tharja certainly doesn’t want to be the reason for any undue stress in Nowi’s daughter. Still, everybody else in their family holds some awareness of the situation in which Tharja finds herself, and it would be unfair to leave Nah out simply because, by their standards, she is the closest thing they have in their lives to a child.

 

 

Once again Tharja is reminded that this Nah has seen the ruins of a desecrated world, and that she is no more a child than any of them.

 

 

Curbing what little maternal instinct she is still able to muster in her heart, Tharja turns her eyes on Nah and is unsurprised to find the girl simply waiting for an answer. She heaves a lighter sigh than she had anticipated and begins. It is a speech she has delivered only three times before, but her lips find their way around the words. Perhaps it is something in the fresh, free atmosphere, or the way that Nah’s wide eyes follow her own, searching for the right moments to question, to comfort, or to offer silent solidarity, but this is the easiest telling of her story that Tharja has ever experienced.

 

 

 

Her journey was never meant to be easy, and Tharja suspects that even if she had not been a follower of Grima in the beginning, Naga would have made sure to challenge her just the same. The Divine Dragon had indeed blessed her with eternal life, or at least, an _almost_ eternal life. Tharja has been given a gift in exchange for a vow, a vow that her love for Robin had been pure and would remain so until their final reunion. It was a vow that she had not faltered to make, and to this day it is one of the only decisions she has ever made that Tharja does not regret.

 

Even if she is unsure that she truly knows what love is, she knows that what she feels for Robin is as close to love as she will ever get, and that is enough.

 

With Nah’s eyes on her, Tharja explains exactly what she has explained so few times before. Her memories are tied to her very essence, her soul, constantly evolving and becoming something more, but never changing in their content, in their value. Nah’s silent gasp is a welcome distraction from the gravity of her thoughts, and Tharja invites the interruption with a cryptic smile and a nod. “Yes?”

“Does that mean that you remember everything about your life? _Everything_?”

Tharja shakes her head. “Not everything. Only the things that matter.”

Not that determining _what_ matters is simple, as Tharja has begun to find. Anything and everything pertaining to her relationship with Robin, she remembers as crisply as the day they happened. Every encounter she has ever had with Robin, with all the Robins of the past, is retained in pristine, crystalline-perfect memories. It is a feat of magic the likes of which Tharja cannot even begin to comprehend, and which Nah, as a descendant of the dragonkin, understands no better. Not even Tiki, the closest of them all to Naga, has ever come close to learning how the Divine Dragon had managed it, and yet of all the improbable facts that make up the world, the infallibility of Tharja’s memory is the truest improbability of all.

It is not her entire memory that has remained so well-kept, of course, and Tharja finds, now more than ever, that the old days are beginning to fade. Those memories, of her life before the Shepherds, of Nowi and Gaius, of Gregor, of the barracks, of the Exalt and his queen and Cordelia and Olivia and their time-travelling children, all of those memories have begun, ever so slowly, to lose colour and definition.

Tharja wonders, before she begins to speak once more, what that could mean. Even the faces of her own children are obscured more each day, little by little being lost to the ravages of time. Still, their ghosts are among the strongest to remain, and Tharja suspects that they will hold on, in some form, for as long as it takes for their mothers to find each other again. At least, she hopes that is the case. It would be unfair to their memory, she thinks, for them to be erased completely before Robin has the chance to see them as they were, one last time.

Not for the first time, Tharja wonders which memories Robin has already seen in the form of her dreams. Naga’s magic has only made it possible for Robin to receive the memories with prolonged exposure to Tharja or one “of their time”; but to the best of her recollection this transferral had never made any chronological sense. At times, the violence of the memories, of the wars they had fought, had surfaced before the sweeter days, and it had been those times when Tharja had been forced to watch Robin turn away from her in disgust, in fear of the past.

Nah takes her hand then, and when Tharja looks at the dragonkin she sees Nah as more of a child than she ever has been.

 

Tharja’s free hand comes up to her face, and she feels that her cheeks are wet with tears.

 

Nah’s still-small hand squeezes hers, and Tharja continues to speak though she feels strangely mortified at what is happening. Truthfully, there isn’t much more that she strictly _needs_ to say, but Nah’s presence is a comfort and a balm for the wounds of her loneliness, in a way that not even Tiki’s presence is. The younger woman is patient and kind and allows Tharja her moods, even when Tharja does not deserve such understanding, and it makes the once-sorceress feel at ease.

 

It makes her think of home.

It makes her think of Noire and Morgan.

 

It makes her realize just how seriously she and Anna and the dragonkin have taken their family for the last few centuries, and it makes her realize that she does in fact know how to love. Through her tears and her rushed, whispered words, Tharja smiles. It remains with her even when the conversation veers off into silence, and through until the evening, when her family is reunited once more and the walk in the park is little more than one small, shared moment between herself and Nah.

 

 

She wonders what it will be like, telling Robin all of this, if she will ever even be able to accomplish such a thing.

 

 

Later that night, Tharja wonders if Tiki, Nowi, Anna, and Nah suspect that she has held anything back from them. She hopes not, because they might not understand even if she had shared all of her feelings with them. It is not much that she has kept to herself, only a simple, small, almost unattainable wish of hers. A wish for death’s reprieve, which she has long held close to her heart.

It is only fair, as she constantly reassures herself, that she would wish for something like that. After all, the rest of her family had all been born with the gift of these extended lives, even Anna, who Tharja has long suspected is more than the mere human merchant she once claimed to be. Their longevity is their birthright, and it is a matter of their pride to live as long and as well as they can.

 

Tharja however, lives only in pursuit of a love of which she was robbed. The promise of one final, lasting reunion is all that has kept her here so long, and even then, every day is a struggle. She finds her bones grow wearier with each month that passes, each year that dies. Some days, she wishes that she could love Robin a little less; if only because perhaps then she would be allowed the freedom of death. This is something that Tharja fears her family might never understand.

 

She hopes that they never find out the truth of what lies in her heart.

 

The matter is not spoken of further, though a certain understanding, a certain level of openness, spreads throughout their household. The other adults no longer walk on eggshells around Tharja, and a level of normalcy returns to the house that had been missing for the longest time. For her part, she tries her best to be better than her usual sullen self—Anna, Nowi, Tiki, and Nah deserve that much and more from her.

 

***

 

Tharja spends the majority of springtime preparing for the coming school year though she has yet to reach a firm decision on whether or not she will be returning come fall. Nah invites her to spend more time at the museum, and out of a passing wish to please the younger woman Tharja agrees. For the first time, Tharja pays attention as she hovers at Nah’s shoulder throughout the day, which turns into another day, and then another, until they have spent the entirety of spring together both at home and in the halls of Nah’s beloved museum.

 

Tharja is guilty. Perhaps if she had spent so much time with her own children, they would never have left her.

 

Or at the very least, she would have felt comfortable enough in their love to actually come to see them.

 

Such melancholy thoughts occasionally pervade Tharja’s otherwise contented mind; and the weeks fly past more quickly than she is accustomed to them doing. A change in season soon greets them with the same mild heat that Tharja has come expect from the beginnings of Ylissean summers, and she is pleasantly surprised when Tiki drops by her room one day with an envelope in her hands.

“What is that, Tiki?” she asks, already aware of the answer. After all, nobody has anything much to do for a while, and Nah has already organized the museum employees in such a way that it would be impossible for anything bad to occur in her absence. This is about their family vacation, surely.

Tiki grins in her wide-toothed, tricky way and says, “Why, it’s our plane tickets, of course!”

“Oh?” Tharja prays briefly that this year’s vacation will be nothing like last year’s—Nowi _and_ Anna had run off and gotten themselves lost, separately, in one of the biggest cities on the continent, just outside of where Regna Ferox’s fortress had once stood. It had taken the better part of a day to find them, and another few days to return to the places they both had been lost in, due to a few missing personal effects that both Nowi and Anna had deemed “irreplaceable”. _Please let it_ not _be in a gigantic city. Please let it be somewhere familiar. Please let it be somewhere it would be difficult to get lost in._

“Well _open_ it, won’t you, Tharja?” Tiki asks, and it is only then that Tharja realizes the envelope has been waggling under her nose for the last little while.

Tharja takes it and rips it open as neatly as somebody who doesn’t care about opening envelopes neatly could want, and when she brings the tickets in her hand up to her face she’s surprised to hear a soft gasp escape her lips.

 

In her hand are five tickets to Plegia. Specifically, to the city closest to what had once been her home with Robin and her children.

 

She hasn’t been home in _centuries_.

 

“We thought that you would want to go home for a bit. It might help you,” says Tiki, trusting that Tharja will pick up on what it is that they all think she might need help with. She does, and inclines her head just a little to acknowledge it. Mostly so that Tiki won’t say anything.

“That’s so thoughtful of you all,” Tharja begins, “but doesn’t the heat bother you?”

Tiki shakes her head, long green hair following the movements with gentle precision. “Not so much, honestly. And besides, we’ve all been home in recent years—well, not Anna, but I don’t quite know where she came from and it seems she’s in no rush to go back—and we figured it was high time you went back. It’s been far too long.”

“Thank you,” Tharja says. Out of habit, she worries her bottom lip just a little, but of course Tiki catches on.

“What is it?”

Tharja looks down at the tickets in her hand. “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?” Tiki’s voice is soft and lyrical, as always, but laced with the familiar concern that Tharja has long since equated with the eldest of the manaketes.

“I’m beginning to forget my—them…I’m afraid of what I might feel when I see that place again.” Her voice sounds so, _so_ tired. So world-weary and worn.

Tiki pulls her into a gentle hug and Tharja can feel the soft smile on the woman’s face against her hair. “There’s nothing to fear. We’ll all be with you.” The once-Voice of Naga rubs small circles into Tharja’s back. “This visit will be good for you, Tharja, but it will also be but a flickering moment in the grand scheme of your life. You needn’t fear the affect it may have on you.”

Tharja wills herself to believe that Tiki is right before detaching herself and thanking the other woman for her time. She doesn’t know what to expect. The house is long gone, the land is long changed, and the world has been different for the longest time. Nothing will be the same, but perhaps she doesn’t need it to be. All that Tharja knows is that she needs to see that place again, no matter her fears. Even if it _is_ only for a flickering moment. “You’re right.”

Across from her, Tiki smiles with all the serenity of someone at peace with the world. “You know, this visit may be the best thing for you. Who knows? It may help you in more ways than one.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s about a month later, surrounded by the Plegian sands, when Tharja realizes that she needn’t have feared; Tiki was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday to all! As per usual, I hope to have the next chapter of AYL up two weeks from now at the latest, so look out for that :)
> 
> Thank you all so much for the support you've shown thus far. The encouragement has been awesome!
> 
> Shoot me some questions or whatever @lazywritergirl.tumblr.com if you are so inclined. I'd love to hear from you!


	15. Persistence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja sees Robin everywhere she goes. And it's on purpose.

Upon returning from their Plegian vacation Tharja’s family is closer than ever, and with their support she decides it would be best to just woman-up and get back to her job. After all, she can only pretend to do research for so long before her reserve of papers runs out, and the idea of writing new ones, while oddly pleasing in a sense, is also the most energy-consuming thing that Tharja can see herself doing this year. No, it really would be in her best interests to just get it over with and return to the university in the fall.

As she begins to make the usual arrangements for her classes, it is almost as if she is possessed by the spirit of productivity. This productivity manages to continue for long enough that Tharja is well underway to getting everything for the first semester prepared before she realizes that she needs a break of some sort. Tiki is pleased to see her working so hard, and the teasing for which the eldest of the house was once well known makes its return, much to Tharja’s (faked) displeasure and everyone else’s amusement.

It would be fine, really, and Tharja wouldn’t mind it _at all_ …if Tiki were the only one.

 

 

If there weren’t a certain redheaded wonder-woman-time-and-space-wanderer walking around the house, just _waiting_ to tease Tharja with some cheeky chatter or obnoxious one-liner.

 

 

“Did I tell you the best news, Thar?” asks Anna one evening as she returns from doing another week’s worth of groceries.

Tharja fights against the scowl that begins to form at the _awful_ shortening of her name and instead manages a simple, “What news?”

“Oh, just that I’ll be working alongside you three at the university this coming year! I’m not tenured, at least not yet, but I get an office and my own courses and everything! There was an opening in the history department literally yesterday” Anna places all the bags on the island in the centre of the kitchen and starts to unpack them before adding, “You remember Professor Hubbard?”

“The pervert?” Tharja asks drily. “The geriatric?” she adds for good measure.

Anna’s smile is infectious and Tharja grins when the redhead says, “ _Ayup!_ Anyway, he passed on—

“Whoa, when?” Tharja hadn’t _liked_ the old man, but he had been more knowledgeable than most of the “New Ylisseans” Tharja and Tiki had ever met. He’d been teaching for so long that he’d lived to “meet” three of their different glamours, so he had earned some respect. “Why didn’t I read any obituaries in the paper?”

“Oh _Thar_ , not like that. He passed on _his responsibilities,_ and his office, to me for the next year at least. He’s going on sabbatical to ‘rediscover’ the reason why he was drawn to history in the first place, and he told the dean I would be more than suitable as his replacement!”

“Considering that isn’t how these things are normally done, do you mean to tell me that the dean just…agreed? Just like that?”

Anna stares at her for a moment before nodding, and Tharja thinks that this all smells strongly of Tiki, but she congratulates Anna nonetheless because it’s nice to know that she’ll be getting her office back—and because she _is_ slightly, marginally pleased by the knowledge that Anna will be working with them all for at least another year.

“So you told her then, Auntie Anna?” asks Nah as she bustles into the kitchen, effectively acing Anna out in putting groceries where they belong and pulling out ingredients for dinner.

“Sure did kiddo, so it’s your turn now,” says Anna in response. Her voice is strangely enthusiastic and it just really _bothers_ Tharja for Naga only knows what reason. Not in a bad way, really, but in a way that reminds Tharja of the old Anna, the “buy-this-particular-set-of-smallclothes-or-I’ll-cut-you-and-your-hair-and-your-face-and-possibly-also-the-smallclothes” Anna of whom Tharja had been…less than fond.

Nevertheless, it would appear that Nah has something to tell her and so Tharja turns to face the youngest of the dragonkin with a question in her eyes. Nah’s response is to flash her aunt a brilliant smile from her place by the already-bubbling pot of water on the stove. The smile is accompanied by the words, “I’ll be taking classes come fall. Not all history, of course, but I’d like to take a few of your courses as electives.” She turns away a moment to put a pinch of something—probably salt—into the water before saying, “I’m finally going to finish that degree I took up a while back.”

“Is that still possible?”

“Technically no, but…” the youngest of the house needs not offer another word in terms of explanation, as Tharja and Anna both nod sagely and say, “Tiki” before she can finish. As if summoned, Tiki herself steps through the archway leading into the kitchen, a drowsy grin stretching from one side of her face to the other.

“Won’t this year be such fun? A family experience,” she says, laughing her way through a yawn.

Tharja briefly wonders if she should be contesting the notion of the coming year as a fun family experience, but a rather sharp (uncalled for) nudge to her ribs by Anna is more than enough of a deterrent. Besides, she has three courses and a thesis mentorship to concern herself with now, and there’s so much to do. A few days passage will see them to September, and the dates are close enough now that she really should be working instead of sitting in the kitchen trading gossip with her family.

“Such fun,” she says instead, as drily as she can, and before Tiki can protest Tharja is up and out of her chair, black robe flowing behind her _most_ dramatically as she stalks up the stairs.

“Stop channeling the dungeon bat!” calls Anna’s voice, and Tharja scowls to herself.

 

 

 

 

She’s doing no such thing.

 

 

 

 

 

And besides, her office is nowhere _near_ the “dungeons” of the university basement, something that Anna should know very well by now, the silly woman.

 

***

 

Tharja feels the edges of nervousness flicker in and out of view. She isn’t absolutely sure that she is truly ready for this, but things are so boring without a job to go to four days out of the week, and Tharja loathes boredom now more than she ever has. Focusing on the promise of a reduction in boredom is almost enough to ease the butterflies that skitter about in her stomach, and she’s confident she’s in almost perfect condition to begin the school year.

_Almost._

In spite of all her planning, Tharja still manages to forget one crucial thing, as she learns on the morning of the first day of classes. Scanning through pages upon pages of paper on her desk Tharja realizes, with something akin to mild ( _very_ mild) horror, that she has forgotten all of her class lists at home. It isn’t a major set-back of course, as she’s only teaching one of these classes today, but such a mindless mistake does little to bolster her confidence about her less-than-triumphant return to teaching. She prints off the day’s list without much thought, and stuffs it into a folder with something that would feel like urgency if she was actually the twenty-eight year old professor she claimed to be.

It takes her another fifteen minutes to reassure herself that she has everything she needs, but when she finally does, Tharja walks into a mid-size classroom about ten minutes earlier than she needs to; and feels her heart jump directly into her throat.

 

Seated in the front row, eyes flashing with acknowledgement and poorly-concealed joy, notebook and pen at the ready, is Robin Grimm.

 

“Professor,” she says demurely. Tharja wonders how it is possible for the younger woman to put so many emotions into a single, neutral word.

“Miss Grimm,” Tharja offers, happy that her voice is less shaky than she had expected it would be when next she encountered Robin. She tries for a casual “Have a nice summer?” and is impressed that she manages to get it out with just the right air of professorial disinterest.

Robin smiles a slightly different—perhaps more mature—smile than Tharja can remember. It doesn’t falter as the younger woman nods and says, “Yes, I did. And you, Professor?”

“It was pleasant, thank you.”

Tharja can practically see all the questions forming behind Robin’s eyes: _Where did you go? Why did you leave? Was it because of me, and that afternoon in your office?_ She wonders if she should be the first to bring it up, but surely that would be inappropriate of her. It’s in the past anyway, and though she now knows that she could have done something much better than what she’d actually done, it’s all a little late for that now.

A bag beside Robin’s seat catches Tharja’s attention, and she gets the distinct feeling that she knows precisely who the owner is. After all, there aren’t very many students at Ylisstol University who walk around with such a distinctive black, gold, and purple backpack covered in crow silhouettes. The “lucky” feather dangling from one of the front zippers is another dead giveaway.

“Whoa! Hiya Tharja! You’re the prof? Cool!”

“Good morning, Henry,” she says, finding that she does not have to force the little smile that appears on her lips. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m great. No CAWS for complaint here, nya ha!” The young man laughs his signature laugh and Tharja shakes her head in something approaching fondness as Henry takes his seat. Gods, those jokes always were awful, no matter the era.

“Glad to hear it,” she says before making a smooth excuse to bow out of the conversation, something about needing to set up the classroom. Both Robin and Henry shoot her their familiar grins before turning to each other, effectively acing her out of the conversation.

She turns around and begins to set up the various technological elements of the classroom, just as she’d said she would. Briefly, Tharja wonders if they are the only two Shepherds in the class. The question is answered by Robin, nonverbally, as more students begin to trickle into the room. There are about sixty seats or so, and as expected the back rows fill up quickly though students are as reluctant to sit at the front as expected. In spite of this Robin places her backpack on the seat beside her, and Tharja immediately begins to question who it will be.

From what she saw last year, Chrom and Gaius are one of those “inseparable” couples, so the idea that one of them would take a course without the other, unless absolutely necessary, is dubious. That leaves the girls…unless of course, there are other reincarnated Shepherds that she and Tiki and the others have yet to meet. That is also possible, though admittedly more stressful than Tharja thinks it should be.

Tharja mulls it over to herself, keeping a neutral expression on her face so as not to frighten students who have only heard about, but never so much as seen, Dr. Tharja Noirgan before today. She knows that she’s hardly intimidating at first glance. It has something to do with how she looks about the same age, give a few years, as the average university student. While not friendly by any stretch of the imagination, her once dark, brooding exterior has given way to something resembling indifference. It certainly doesn’t help that she can no longer actually curse somebody to cry non-stop for a week, no matter how much she means it.

“Hello everyone, if you could all settle down, we’ll be starting in a minute or two,” she says, offering whoever it is Robin’s waiting for a small chance to _not_ be late on the first day of classes. And there really _are_ a few minutes left before the class period formally begins, so it isn’t as if she’s bending the rules or showing preferential treatment. No, not at all, Tharja would _never_ do that.

 

Just as she’s about to begin, familiar pink hair comes into view and Olivia is bowing her head and apologizing profusely. Tharja is about to say something when the pinkette looks up, notices just whose class she was very nearly late to, and promptly bows her head even lower as she continues to apologize. Tharja catches the words “dance” and “studio” and “friend” before she finally puts a stop to Olivia’s rambling with a simple, “It’s alright, Olivia. Take a seat, and we’ll begin.”

Olivia recovers from her embarrassment much more quickly than Tharja has ever known her to, and she smiles gratefully before sliding into the seat at Robin’s right hand. Tharja only listens to the pinkette’s exchange with her two white-haired friends long enough to hear Henry snicker, “Making out with Mari again?” before she has to be a professor.

 

In spite of herself however, she cracks a wider smile than normal as she turns to the class because _she knew it_ , there had been something going on there with Maribelle and Olivia last year.

 

Looking as far back as she can, Tharja wonders if they had always had some strange sort of relationship. Nothing comes to mind. She’s painfully reminded that she had never paid either woman too much mind, aside from begrudging respect on one side and irrational, possessive jealousy and mild contempt on the other.

As always, it embarrasses her to think on her past behaviour for too long so she takes one last look at Robin’s earnest, open, breathtaking ( _stop it, Tharja_ ) face, breathes deeply, and begins.

“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to: Of Men and Dragons, Religion in Early Ylisse and Plegia. I am Dr. Noirgan, but you may call me Tharja.”

 

Robin’s eyes remain focused on her for the entirety of the class, and the intensity of the white-haired woman’s gaze causes Tharja to stutter once or twice.

 

***

 

The next day, at noon, Tharja experiences something she can only call partial-déjà vu. As per her normal routine, she walks into class about fifteen minutes early (this time, Succession and Conflict in Post-War Plegia, a personal favourite topic) and is surprised to find Robin seated, as always, in the front row, Maribelle sitting primly at her right hand. At Robin’s other side is the ever-radiant Cordelia wearing a pleasant, polite smile on her lips. Beside Cordelia is Henry, whose face seems to be a warm pink colour that Tharja doesn’t think she’s ever seen on him before. Perhaps it’s something about the light reflecting off the glamorous red of Cordelia’s hair?

Or perhaps she’s missing something again? After all, the boy—young man, she corrects—is talking on his phone, as she can tell based on the raven decal that she knows he’d put on the back of it. Perhaps he has a girlfriend, or boyfriend, or partner of some sort? It wouldn’t be the first time Tharja has missed out on these cues, if the situation with Maribelle and Olivia is any indication.

Whoever the person on the other end of the line may be, both Robin and Cordelia seem to know just who it is causing the blush to rise against Henry’s fair skin, and Tharja bites back the curiosity peeking up from under her veneer of professional detachment. It isn’t any of her business. These aren’t her comrades-in-arms, and that isn’t her wife, and she needs to stop feeling this…this _feeling_ that she gets whenever she looks at all of them together.

She doesn’t even know what to call it aside from “this feeling”, and that just adds immeasurably to her frustration.

To steady her somewhat shaky inner self, Tharja nods to the Shepherds and exchanges pleasantries with Cordelia in a similar fashion to the way she’d done with Robin and Henry only the day before, choking down her bitterness as best she can in the process. As expected, the redhead is the picture of perfection as she returns Tharja’s queries with her own perfectly agreeable comments. It’s all very pleasant and comfortable, and yet Tharja can’t help but feel like as if Robin is trying much too hard _not_ to say something in her usual cheeky, endearing ( _enough, Tharja_ ) mien.

 

The only indication she has for this is the way that Robin’s owlish, ever-shifting eyes flicker between Tharja’s and Cordelia’s faces when she thinks the former isn’t paying attention.

Because Robin _still_ doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact that Tharja will always pay attention to her.

 

Tharja doesn’t allow herself time to brood on that too much, because more students are beginning to come in and it would be best for her to at least _appear_ semi-non-partial to the three students she clearly knows. A few more familiar faces pop up, though none of the other Shepherds appear to be interested in this class, and so she manages to breathe just a little easier because if it’s only Robin, Cordelia, and Henry, she can _do_ this.

 

Just like the day before, she notices that Robin’s eyes only rarely leave her form, and Tharja can barely fight the small flashes of warmth as they rise to colour her skin.

 

***

 

Her third class is an afternoon class that runs from three to six in the evening, and while Tharja hates the time slot she absolutely adores the course. After all, who better to teach Fact and Fiction: Legends of the Continent, than a woman who had lived during the time of said legends, a woman who was, last she’d checked, _part_ of said legends?

 

Another element to the day that promises to make this awful time slot easy to  bear is the knowledge that Nah will be attending this class. That way she won’t feel so alone on the odd chance that Robin and company are also miraculously in this class as well.

 

“Good afternoon, Professor,” says that oh-so-familiar voice, and Tharja has to stop herself from cringing because Robin is so, so close to her. _Yet so far away_ , her conscience teases, and she just really wants to hit herself or something, but she can’t because there’s another thought overpowering that one, and that is: _why is this happening?_ Robin being in all three of her classes outside of the thesis mentorship she’s going to be starting tomorrow is surely all just a freaky, fate-hates-Tharja coincidence, right?

 

Because if Robin did this on purpose, planned this on purpose, then there’s certainly something to be said for her persistence when it comes to Tharja.

 

Even if said persistence also makes Tharja feel slightly uncomfortable, as if Robin is _preying_ on her in a sense. Gods, had she made Robin feel like this, all those centuries ago? It’s a sobering thought, but one that helps pull her down into the reality where she is a professor who has been addressed by a student, and not just a woman who has been on a journey through time all for the sake of reclaiming a lost love.

“Good afternoon, Miss Grimm,” she says, noting that Henry’s familiar crow-backpack is in the seat directly behind Robin. As her eyes flicker to the spots surrounding the white-haired woman, she notices two things: firstly, that those other backpacks all looks _awfully_ familiar and secondly, that Robin is frowning at her.

 

_Gods, why are you looking at me that way?_

 

“Hiya, Tharja!” Henry exclaims from somewhere behind her and she turns and gives him a pinched smile.

“Hello, Henry,” she says, turning away to fix something askew on her desk. When she turns back she notices that five more seats have been filled, and with measured patience she says, “Hello to you all as well, Cordelia, Olivia, Maribelle, Chrom, and Gaius.”

The group answers her in a polite little chorus, and Tharja notes with an eerie sense of recognition that this is precisely the formation in which they’d sat in her tutorial on that first day together one year ago. Robin’s frown has grown into something Tharja would call a grimace if that weren’t such an ugly word unbefitting of her dear Robin ( _GODS THARJA GIVE IT A REST_ ).

Before she can really say what’s happening Robin is standing before her resolutely, hands on hips, and the Shepherds’ drone of conversation has hushed into something resembling silence. Tharja opens her mouth to ask what Robin is doing when the shorter woman—though it isn’t by much anymore—takes her by the hand and all but drags her out into the hallway.

“R—

“Look, Tharja, I get that what I did was inappropriate, but _really_? You left! And now,” Robin takes a deep breath, as if to calm herself, and when she speaks again she sounds so mature and thought-out that Tharja can’t bring herself to interrupt. “I understand that it’s easier for you to talk to the others; but if you’re so always so formal with me and not them, they’ll begin to notice, and I haven’t told them anything about that afternoon. We need to have a conversation about this, a real one.”

There is fire in Robin’s eyes that reminds her so much of the old days, of the woman she had loved and lost and lived out almost twenty times her natural lifespan for, and Tharja cannot bring herself to resist. Besides, Robin is right. It _is_ about time she stop running away from what happened, which should never have been as big of a deal as she let it become. “I agree. My off—

Robin shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Tharja, I know it seems like I’m overstepping my boundaries as a student, and disrespecting your position as a professor…but I don’t think that would be the best place. There’s a café a little ways off campus. We should talk there.”

Tharja knows of the place. In spite of the proximity to the school, the café Robin has mentioned is not as popular as one would expect. Tharja herself is a regular at the place—something about it reminds her of home, wherever that is—and so it shouldn’t seem too suspicious if she and Robin meet there. Besides, there’s something about this new, mature side of Robin that intrigues her.

“Tharja?” Robin’s eyes are all persistent determination and there’s no way she can say no to that, so she slowly turns back towards the classroom door, feeling Robin’s eyes on her back.

Over her shoulder she says, “After class, then.”

 

 

It makes her happier than it should, the bright smile that graces Robin’s lips as she slips ahead of Tharja and into the room, rejoining her friends as if nothing has just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo, one week!  
> Hopefully the next one will be ready in a week's time, or I'll feel badly.  
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, everyone! You make me feel so loved :)
> 
> Catch me @lazywritergirl.tumblr.com if you feel so inclined. Not much going on there right now but I'll get to it...eventually.


	16. Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja and Robin meet in the middle.

Tharja orders a black coffee for herself and “whatever she wants” for Robin, and then they’re sitting across from each other in a booth lined with orange-brown pillows that look awful but are soft and comfortable.

 

One minute they’re just sitting, unnecessarily stirring their respective drinks, and then their long-awaited, mature discussion begins. Tharja is glad she hadn’t ordered a pastry. She’s always found eating during serious conversation to be a detestable behaviour. That and she’s also almost certain that her current state of nervousness would result in vomit all over everything if she so much as tried to add more than coffee to her stomach.

 

“I know I’ve said it before, but I truly am sorry. I wasn’t thinking, and what I did ended up causing trouble for you,” says Robin, and Tharja forces herself to look down into the deep brown of her coffee instead of the deep brown of Robin’s sad, kicked-puppy eyes.

This is so very like Robin, to apologize without knowing all of the details. Tharja can’t blame her fully, it wouldn’t be fair, but she allows herself a moment to pretend, just to pretend, that Robin’s apology is all she needs to make things right. She pretends, just for a moment, that she really is just twenty-eight years old, talking to her student about a year’s old transgression that she had allowed to happen all the same.

The fantasy does not last long in the face of Robin’s earnest expression.

“Robin, I told you, you needn’t apologize. I was going through some personal issues at the time as well, and what happened between us startled me.” She puts it lightly, because it would be unfair to dump almost two thousand years of anguish onto someone so young and yet untouched by the cruelty of life. “My leave from the university was not your fault,” she adds, though it’s clear that Robin does not believe her.

They sit in silence much as they have been doing intermittently for the last fifteen minutes or so. Tharja isn’t sure how to broach the topic they actually came here to speak of, however, so she just lets the sounds of the café fill in the empty space between herself and Robin. In a way, it reminds her of their home before Grima, in the two years of peace that they had been allowed to share.

 

Even in the silence back then, she had felt this same comfort. Though this is a public café and not their humble Ylissean quarters, Tharja can sense a similar atmosphere of peace here. It’s nice.

The café is emptier than usual today, with only two or three other tables housing occupants, but Tharja thinks that that might actually be better for her and Robin’s purposes. They haven’t been speaking at full volume, obviously, but the lack of other customers makes it easier for them to carry out a conversation at a somewhat-normal level. Whispering would just make her feel even worse, like as if it were something shameful being discussed, which, if she’s being honest with herself, really isn’t that big of a deal.

 

“I know, but I still feel badly.” Robin takes a sip of her tea—a Plegian blend that she’d been fond of from the very beginning, Tharja notes with some satisfaction—and shakes her head. “But I suppose we’ve beaten around the bush long enough, Dr. No—Tharja,” Robin says firmly. “I just want you to know that I _did_ mean what I said, and I still mean it. I didn’t just say the first thing that popped into my head after kissing you. Truth is, I feel connected to you in some way, and I apologize if that makes you uncomfortable but what I feel—

“Robin, if I might interject, before you say anything more?” Tharja clears her throat at Robin’s confused nod. The bitterness of her coffee sits unpleasantly on her tongue, but she has to get this out, and now. “I never meant to make you feel as if you were a child incapable of feeling whatever it is you feel, or think you feel,” she says. “I should have told you that sooner.”

Though Robin does not know this, it would be hypocritical of Tharja to scoff at her feelings. After all, hadn’t she, Tharja, been told by so many before that her love for Robin was misguided and immature? Had she not believed so strongly in her feelings that she had defended them against all of the naysayers? And she had been the same age as Robin had been last year.

“But you pointed out my age as your first argument,” Robin says, and Tharja has to marvel, briefly, at how very like her old self this Robin is. She’s just as quick to tear through Tharja’s woolgathering tactics to get to the heart of what needs to be said. She does it so quickly, with so little effort, that Tharja wonders why she hadn’t done so a year ago, when Tharja had all but shoved her out of the office.

_Unless you never really gave her the chance to, Tharja_ , she tells herself. _You just weren’t listening to her._

 

Robin continues, “Was it my being a teenager that bothered you? Because I’m twenty now, and—

“That’s a much smaller difference than it seems like, Robin,” Tharja says quietly, because what is one extra year of Robin’s life to the hundreds upon hundreds that she herself has had to live? The almost two-thousand years she has wandered here, squandered here, they make her very bones ache with their weight.

 

Can it truly be squandering life, though, if one does it in search of love? She isn’t sure, but the self-imposed question puts a damper on her previously neutral-at-worst mood.

 

Robin seems to catch on to the dark temper that Tharja is in, because her expression slackens from one of fierce determination to the look of somebody trying to understand what someone else is saying while holding on to the next point in their own argument. Afraid of what might happen if she leaves the silence alone for too long, Tharja lets out a weak, “Besides, I stand by what I said. I’m your teacher. You’re my student. We can’t be what you want us to be.”

“I’m sorry, Tharja, but I don’t think that you can use that excuse,” Robin says, though from the softness in her voice it’s obvious that she’s trying to be as kind as she can in spite of her argument. “If that were the problem, why didn’t you come find me after you took your leave?”

“I—

“I thought about it for a long time, Tharja. Since you’d never specified if you didn’t feel…anything for me, I’d thought that…,” Robin trails off for a moment, and from the pink tinge on her cheeks Tharja can tell that the younger woman is embarrassed. She tries her best to nod encouragingly even though this is possibly one of the most awkward conversations she’s ever experienced, and eventually Robin says, “I thought that you were going to surprise me and tell me that you wanted what I wanted. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I thought…that you took your leave because you wanted to be with me.”

Tharja almost blurts out “I took my leave to be away from you”, but that can only be construed wrongly, and it would hurt Robin, and Tharja can’t do that to the white-haired woman. Not again. Not ever again, if she can help it, though she knows it is inevitable that she will.

Instead, she says, “You and I both know that that wouldn’t have been wise. I fully intended to return to the university this year, after all. Why would I—

“Start something your conscience wouldn’t let you finish?” Robin asks, though immediately she appears to regret her choice of words. “Sorry. That sounded childish.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tharja says, half because she isn’t offended and half because it’s a little…encouraging…how Robin just said what she’d been thinking of saying. She’s torn between wanting the conversation to move along more quickly, and wanting to keep them frozen in time so that she could spend the rest of her life just basking in Robin’s presence.

 

Robin stares at her tea, and Tharja lets her be alone with her thoughts for a while. When the white-haired woman speaks next, her voice is the perfect balance between vulnerable and firm.

 

“If you’re not interested in me, why didn’t you just come out and say it?”

 

She still could, Tharja realizes, but she can’t bring herself to lie to Robin so boldly.

 

“It’s…more complicated than that.” The way that the hope of some long-forgotten wish burns in Robin’s eyes helps to soothe Tharja’s raging anxiety at the words that have tumbled out of her mouth almost of their own accord.

“How so?”

“You remember how you told me about your dreams?”

Robin’s face takes on the perfect cluelessness of confusion but she nods and says, “I thought—still think—that they were more like visions, but yes, I remember.”

Tharja takes a deep breath because she doesn’t know why she’s doing this, but if there’s a perfect time to tell Robin the truth she can’t imagine what it would be or how she’d even go about noticing it. “What if I told you that, though I’m not ready to talk about everything, I can at least tell you that I agree that your dreams are important?”

Robin looks at her blankly for a moment, not really registering the words, but when the moment passes she smiles brightly. “I _knew_ I wasn’t going crazy. There’s something significant about my dreams, isn’t there?”

Tharja nods, the movement distinct enough to convey her reluctance to discuss the matter any further at present, and Robin seems to take the message well though it is obvious she wishes to pursue the topic. As Tharja stares at the contents of her cup she wonders if the dreams have continued to show up, even in her relative absence. She knows that Naga had specifically mentioned _her_ presence as a catalyst, but what of Tiki? Of Nowi and Anna?

Naga either hadn’t known they would be so close to Robin, else simply didn’t think it mattered, but Tharja has to know. It doesn’t change anything, really, but she’s too old to allow curiosity to remain where she knows that an answer can be easily found. Dreading what Robin will take the question to mean, Tharja asks, “Do you still get them then, those dreams?”

Robin sits back, silent a moment as she inspects the rim of her cup, which she appears to have bitten in several places. Brown eyes flash back up at Tharja when Robin says, “A few, but nothing about you and me…nothing I could decipher all too well, really. They were different from the dreams I had about us,” Robin pauses to sip her coffee; unaware or else uncaring about how her unabashed mention of the two of them brings a rise of colour to Tharja’s pale cheeks.

“Different how?”

“The ones I had about us were so distinct, so real. They felt like memories, almost like they were constructed out of something that had really happened to me, and I was living them right there with you. The dreams I’ve had recently feel…abstracted. Like they’re trying to tell me something that they technically shouldn’t be.”

“I see.” Tharja has no clue what that could mean, but it does answer the question. Robin’s exposure to the dragonkin and Anna has left her with less coherent memories than she would have through contact with Tharja, but they are there in her head already.

She can’t even begin to understand what to do next, so Tharja just looks down at the cup in her hands and traces the curve of the circular rim with her eyes. There’s nowhere she can think to go in this conversation that won’t be inappropriate, nor can she think of a way to excuse herself now without making things between herself and Robin needlessly awkward. She glances up and around, hoping that the white-haired woman will take the hint and say something, _anything._

 

In all seriousness, she’d even accept some lewd joke or completely inappropriate comment.

 

Anything to break the awkward tension in the air.

 

Never one to disappoint, Robin clears her throat delicately. “So…where do we stand now?”

Tharja takes a minute to just look at the woman across from her. Obviously one year has not made much of difference in terms of the canyon of centuries separating the amount of life experience they each can lay claim to. Still, Tharja can see that the single year Robin has grown has afforded her that much more intelligence, that much more maturity, and she wonders when that will stop, if ever.

She knows she’s done it countless times before, but Tharja’s eyes try to pinpoint where this Robin is different from her wife. There are very, very few physical differences, if any. It’s almost eerie just how precisely Robin _now_ looks exactly like Robin _then,_ and then there are the mannerisms that Tharja has long-associated with her original wife alone that have resurfaced in this Robin.

Sometimes it’s still difficult to believe that this bouncing, bright-eyed young woman is bones and flesh and real, and not just something born out of Tharja’s desperation.

“Well,” she begins, hating herself for what she’s about to do, “I know that it wasn’t the best excuse for…well, you know, but the fact still stands that we have, as of now, a teacher-student relationship. Ethics aside, it would be…unwise, no matter—uh,” she cuts herself off, not trusting herself to finish the sentence without compromising her dignity in some way.

“No matter…what?” Robin asks, so vigilant that Tharja is afraid to so much as sigh lest the younger woman be able to detect her every emotion in the sound.

“No matter how much we would like to make something more of what we are… no matter how much _I_ would like to make something more of what we are,” she says, more firmly than she’d ever expected of herself.

 

The smile that Robin flashes at her is so, so worth the anxiety in her stomach, and Tharja has to fight the urge to take the girl’s face into her hands and kiss that beautiful, sunbeam smile.

 

Robin, for her part, seems to be holding back a whoop of jubilation, but her cheeks colour and her smile is so bright and her eyes dance happily before Tharja’s own, as if to say, “I knew you felt something for me. I _knew_ it.”

Tharja wants to play annoyed or exasperated, just a little, but she can’t do it when Robin looks at her with that earnest smile. “Mhm.” She says instead, because it’s casual and noncommittal and not at all indicative of anything else other than agreement.

“So…for now at least…friends?” Robin asks.

There are potential downsides to friendship, of course, though none quite as world-shattering as a full-blown relationship, but Tharja doesn’t know if it would be wise to jump right in. The request, however, is perfectly reasonable, so Tharja smiles. “We’ll see how things go.”

 

That seems to be enough for Robin, who thanks her for the coffee and offers Tharja a convenient way out of the conversation. For the time being. Something in her grin tells Tharja that the younger woman will be waiting for the answer with all the patience of a child with a piece of cake before her: relatively little patience, that is.

Tharja smiles as Robin excuses herself and makes for the door of the café, turning back to give her one more smile.

 

For once, it doesn’t hurt her to watch Robin leave.

 

 

***

 

She knows that her family knows where she spent her missing hour after class, and the only thing Tharja isn’t sure of is who they’ve chosen to speak with her.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Tiki who knocks on her door later that night, after dinner, while Anna, Nowi, and Nah are watching the movie finale of Nah’s show. She hears bouncy music and a language she doesn’t understand, and then there’s the unmistakeable sound of Nah laughing through tears. Tharja takes it all in as Tiki gets herself into a comfortable spot on her bed.

Tiki doesn’t pry and she’s more serious than usual, so Tharja feels completely at ease when she does speak. She knows that the eldest of the house will not ridicule her tonight, and the conversation flows as easily as it has since the beginning of their time together. Tiki listens carefully, doesn’t ask questions, and Tharja knows that by the end of the night she will have a firm resolve one way or another.

“So where does this leave the two of you?”

“I don’t know,” Tharja says, but she knows that Tiki can see what’s in her heart almost better than she can. The longing there, the need, it tells her that to be friends with Robin, while not a perfect cure for the desolation of her spirit, will serve as a wonderful beginning.

 

Friendship takes time to properly evolve, and Tharja knows that she can be patient. She’s waited this long.

 

“You’re going to tell her, right?” Tiki asks, and Tharja isn’t sure what she means.

“What about?”

About how they were married in Robin’s first life? About how, assuming the life in which she’d married Tharja had been her first, this life she’s currently living is her forty-eighth? About how once she had been a feared woman, a brilliant, blood-covered, almost mythical woman? About how the myths they learn about in class are about lives she touched, a life she lived? About how Tharja is old, so, so old, and barely human anymore in spite of her appearance?

 

Even these questions are barely anything, the tip of an iceberg that reaches so far down below the surface that Tharja does not know if there is an end to its depth.

 

Tiki seems to know what has just gone down in her head, because she just smiles that toothy grin of hers and says, matter-of-factly and as if Tharja is a child, “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I meant that you’re going to tell her that you agree to the two of you being friends.”

“Right,” Tharja says, and then she remembers that she hadn’t said that. “I haven’t said that I agree.”

Tiki gives her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, the messy kind that’s half done out of real affection and the other half done to annoy the person on the receiving end. Tharja rolls her eyes but holds her tongue, because she’s suddenly so very tired and a round of banter with Tiki is not at the top of her list of things to do in the next five minutes. Tiki giggles, and she sounds so young that it brings a smile to Tharja’s face.

The dragonkin’s expression mirrors her own when her laughter has quieted, and then she says, softly, surely, “You and I both know that you could never turn her away for very long. Not now. Not after she’s grown so much. We all know how hard this last year has been for you, and we support you no matter what. This is your chance, Tharja.”

 

The dragonkin saunters away slowly, but in that way she has that makes it impossible for Tharja to be _too_ frustrated with her. Tiki’s like a little kid just waiting for Tharja to say something so that she can say or do something incredibly annoying with the knowledge that she will be getting away with it.

 

“What do I do?” Tharja asks, though she knows that she’ll be lucky to receive an answer from Tiki. “What do I do with this chance then?”

 

 

As expected, the green-haired daughter of Naga says nothing and keeps on walking. Unexpectedly however, she turns back at the door, and with the two words that leave her lips Tiki gives Tharja the final piece to the resolution she has been forming in herself since watching Robin’s smile leave the café.

 

“Take it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think this was...eight days since the last? Nine? Less than two weeks, so we're good. Get ready for a little bit of filler, which I'll try to confine to one chapter. Watch me as I try to glaze over the next two years or so of their life without sounding rushed. Expect an update by next Sunday, because I'm trying to do this weekly again! If I'm late, feel free to yell at me [over on tumblr](https://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com). Just let me know you're from Ao3 so I can follow you and attempt to make amends!


	17. Learning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja finds that she's learning, for the first time in years.

At first, nothing really changes.

 

Robin sends her an email that Sunday, seemingly about the readings that are supposed to be done for their Monday class. Tharja replies as best she can while also letting the younger woman know that a friendship between them—though it would require serious effort and boundaries on both of their parts—is something she would like. Robin response can only be described as unprofessional what with all the “smileys” and such that pepper it; but after all that there’s just a simple line about how glad the younger woman is, and then the matter is settled.

The next day Tharja sees Robin in the hallway a good half hour before she expects to run into students. When Robin says “Morning, Tharja!”, she doesn’t hesitate to return the greeting. It’s easier than she’d thought; slipping back into as genial a tone as she can manage as Robin’s name, without any sort of honorific or indication of formality, tumbles from her lips.

Robin is clearly pleased by the turnabout. She spends the entire class smiling, even when Henry’s water bottle accidentally tips over onto her notes and into her lap halfway through Tharja’s introductory spiel on Naga and the religion built around her in the early days of the continent. Thankfully the bottle isn’t all the way full, but Robin’s clothes are still wet enough to be noticeable.

Tharja calls for a break almost as soon as it happens, and she’s glad that her students are all mature enough not to laugh as Robin and her two friends busy themselves with drying up the spill. The pale young man apologizes in his usual Henry way and Olivia dashes off in search of some paper towels, all while Robin continues to smile and insist that everything is fine, it’s just water, and she’ll dry off anyway.

 

 

They meet up at the café after class and set to work on a few guidelines for appropriate behaviour. After all, Tharja may be young, (at least on paper) and it isn’t _technically_ illegal for she and Robin to meet socially, but it also isn’t encouraged. There’s really no clear policy for or against faculty and students developing proper friendships, but talks with a few of her colleagues make it clear that it’s the sort of thing that the school’s backers look down upon. It “opens up the potential for exploitation and blackmail” and isn’t “beneficial” to the professor or student in any way.

 

Not until the student has graduated, in which case the policy is that the university doesn’t care.

 

When Tharja explains this to Robin, the younger woman pouts in mock disappointment. In spite of her reaction, however, her understanding of the situation is clear. Throughout the rest of the afternoon she is gracious in accepting what Tharja deems appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, only commenting when she wants to ask for clarification about something or other. It isn’t at all how typical friendships are conducted, but the entire situation in and of itself isn’t exactly typical either.

 

At the very least, Robin seems happy with whatever she can get.

 

It isn’t until Tharja gets home that she realizes that Robin’s graduation date, assuming she can get all her credits on time, will be two years from now. While she is suddenly tempted to see if Robin can wait that long before any sort of social relationship truly evolves between them, that’s two years of progress that would have been wasted. Besides, they’re already across the starting line. There will be no taking back the beginning of their friendship.

 

Even without that, Tharja has another reason for wanting to get closer to Robin aside from the dictations of reason, and, more pressingly, of longing and loneliness.

 

Now, more than ever, she finds herself concerned for Robin’s mental well-being. The memories that Robin has been receiving in her dreams are probably some of the gentler ones, the quiet moments that they’d shared where nothing much had happened aside from a shared feeling here, a small gesture there. These may have been mixed in with fragments, perhaps, small parts of important conversations, important decisions, but nothing out of the ordinary or all too removed from this changed world in which Robin was born.

Tharja is almost positive that Robin has yet to experience visions of the violence, of the bloodshed, of Risen and ruffians and enemy soldiers beating down village doors and slaughtering innocents. She knows that the white-haired woman has yet to be forced to endure the worst of it all: the tears of children torn from their mothers; the looks on the faces of their comrades, bathed in gore and painted red; of the broken soldiers in the infirmary. She knows that Robin has no clue, remains blissfully unaware, that once she had given her life, wholly and completely, to ensure the continuation of the world.

All of the things Tharja has done are yet hidden as well: her burning of the desert tribe; running away from the young village girl version of Robin after encouraging her affections; her cruelty towards the seventh Robin; her murder of the twelfth Robin’s twin brother, for which she had framed a reincarnated Cherche, Robin’s lover of the time.

There are so many, many more of these awful deeds that pile up and threaten to crush her under their weight, and Tharja finds it difficult, for a moment, to even breathe.

She recoils at the thought of all the cruelties she has performed, all of the mindless, senseless violence and aggression and planning. Though most of the blame for these actions could theoretically be placed on temporary insanity on her part, she knows that she cannot ever fully be blameless.

It therefore relieves her to know that Robin is still not privy to these little horrors.

Tharja knows _that_ for fact, if nothing else. She knows because she knows Robin, _knew_ Robin, at least. Had those memories begun to surface already, Robin would have come to her about them, perhaps in tears, perhaps in anger; but certainly with questions for which she would know Tharja to have answers; answers that Tharja knows Robin won’t yet be ready to hear.

No matter how intelligent and sensitive and mature she aims to be whenever she knows Tharja is paying attention, she could never be ready for this. Hearing the truth would only scare her off as it has so, so many times before.

Not that there’s any point in worrying about any of that until it happens. Tharja knows there’s no way she can move forward if all she does is spends her time panicking over what has yet to occur. It will be difficult, but she knows eventually she’ll need to just let go.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

It takes a bit of time before Tharja is ready to rid herself of her apprehensions; a few months, actually.

 

By the end of the fall semester however, she knows that she’s finally ready to begin this friendship the right way. It certainly helps that Robin never stops smiling for her, by her side at every turn with a kind word of encouragement. She is patient, just as she has always been, and a special portion of her patience seems to have been bestowed upon Tharja. It is a small, but precious gift.

 

For the first time in a long, long, long time, Tharja doesn’t worry if things are beginning to change for the better: she simply _knows_ that they are.

 

The first real challenge Tharja finds herself in need of besting is keeping her familiarity with all things Robin in check. Through the years she’s seen so many different sides of Robin, with so many different likes and dislikes, that she’s not quite sure which Robin liked seafood and which one had been allergic, which Robin had been bedridden throughout childhood and which Robin had been more contented out in nature than in the stuffy, unnatural indoors. Which Robins had loved her, and which had been disgusted at the mere sight of her, or content in the arms of another. Of the latter, “another” was almost always a reincarnation of a former comrade.

 

Of all of the Robins she has known and loved and lived for and lost, the Robin whom Tharja remembers clearest of all is the Robin with whom she had fought and bled and nearly died. The Robin whose life she had watched as it had left her body, foolishly believing it was not yet the end of their love story. The Robin she has clung to the most fiercely is the woman with whom she had created life from nothing but love and Naga’s blessing; unsurprising and uninspired as it may seem, her original wife is the one constant in Tharja’s revolving door of soul mates.

 

This is, of course, more of a problem than Tharja thinks it will be at first. Time and again she’s been blown away by this new Robin’s likeliness to the one who had started it all, but even Tharja is not prepared for exactly how similar this Robin is to her heroic, dragon-slaying saviour of a wife. Including what little qualities she’s been able to observe, carried over from last year’s events, Tharja can see so many similarities that she is a little scared at first. Scared that this is all too good to be true, and that Robin will die or grow bored of her before they can make anything more out of the tentative friendship they have begun to build together.

 

As Tharja gets closer, inch by inch, she learns more and more about the woman she loves, and it is not really learning at all.

 

She knows that Robin once could not tell her own feet apart, but has since become a passable dancer—Olivia had whispered that one to her conspiratorially one morning.

 

She knows that Robin is unfailingly kind, even when her mouth can’t stop from sharing some biting, yet still friendly witticism.

 

She knows before Cordelia tells her, half in jest and half as a sort of warning, that Robin’s stance on love is that there are few powers higher than the warmth of that feeling.

 

 

 

As she “learns”, Tharja finds that the other Shepherds begin to treat her less professionally, more warmly outside of class than they’d already done, and she doesn’t know if that’s something she wants. At first, she is reluctant to also spend time with the other Shepherds,  none of whom she has agreed to be friends with, but they end all up surprising her.

They don’t seem to care much that Robin’s new friend and quite obvious crush is their professor, and Tharja is sure that she must be breaking all of the university’s rules on student-faculty fraternization, but she cannot bring herself to care. There is an easy way with the reincarnated Shepherds, a willingness to accept her with open arms. When they greet her and include her in their morning conversations she can practically feel their motivation: acceptance and warmth mingling with desire to make one of their own dear friends happy.

 

She begins to learn about them as people, and unlike with Robin, almost everything is new and different.

 

Cordelia is not a good runner in spite of being good at almost everything else she puts her mind to.

Olivia is a wonderful singer.

Maribelle has spent the last few summers doing work for Settlements for Society (which Tharja absolutely _does not_ go home and ask about, only to feel her respect for the prim blonde increase exponentially when Anna tells her what it is).

Henry is unfailingly loyal to his friends underneath his (thankfully toned-down) amorality.

At the age of twenty Gaius has more domestic skills wrapped around his sticky fingers than Tharja has managed to learn in almost fifty times that many years.

Ever since kindergarten, Chrom has accidentally broken at least one school artifact each year, and has always done his to replace or at least help clean up the mess.

 

At first, Tharja learns only these and other facts about these people that are not so difficult to figure out on the surface. Then, with only a few weeks before the recently named “Nagamas” celebrations, they start to really let her in.

 

Cordelia is terrified that nobody will ever love her for more than her perfections.

Olivia doesn’t know if she’ll ever be good enough for Maribelle’s family.

Maribelle wants to spend her life giving back to people, instead of heading up her mother’s corporation.

Henry loves his friends so fiercely because they’re all he has left now that his parents have made it clear he isn’t wanted back home.

Gaius is worried that Chrom’s reputation will be dragged down if they stay together.

Chrom wants to help make all of his friends happy, but he doesn’t know how to start.

 

Tharja feels the sincerity when they speak to her. She sees how difficult it must be for them to open up to an older adult whom they don’t really know, but they trust her enough to say what’s weighing on them and in turn, she begins to feel that she can trust them. It had never felt that way before, in the Shepherds’ barracks, and Tharja looks back at the life she’d once had and wonders, as she does more now than ever, what might have become of it had she been _then_ what she has become _now_.

 

 

 

When Tharja is not stuck in her reveries of the past, she finds that it is difficult to match pace with the present. Robin and her friends move so quickly, speak so quickly, act so quickly that Tharja is sometimes lost for minutes before she realizes what happens next. One moment, she’s comforting one of them as they face a wave of sadness; the next, they’re all speaking at once, regaling her with tales of their latest exploits.

Their friendliness extends to Tiki and Nowi and Anna too, as well as Nah, the only “age-appropriate” friendship of them all. Tharja doesn’t realize it at first, but when she does she sees what Robin has done and she can’t help but bring herself to smile. The pair of them alone are not the only ones affected by this shift in their relationship, after all.

Eventually, though Tharja feels it is just a little too soon, she finds that Robin and her friends are being invited to the home she has shared with only four other people for the last two or three hundred years.

 

 

 

It’s then that Tharja begins to see some things a little differently.

 

 

***

 

 

Even in the absence of war, Tharja can see the tactical genius swirling about in Robin’s head, but this is different somehow. Her wife had always tried to secure victories without losing soldiers. Her wife had always tried to treat their enemies with the utmost respect, never taking more from them than necessary in terms of land and resources.

 

This Robin is a different beast entirely.

 

Tharja discovers this after numerous rounds of a board game involving armies and maps and territories and all sorts of variables that she only vaguely remembers Robin overseeing during their war campaigns. Robin, Chrom, Gaius, and Cordelia are playing with Nah, who’s enlisted the help of “Aunt—I mean, A-Anna” due to the latter having a better mind for “this sort of thing” than any of the other “older adults” in the house. The rest of the Shepherds, Tharja, Nowi, and Tiki all sit around the coffee table, mostly sandwiched in between the combatants.

 

For something so decidedly _not_ interesting, everybody seems to be watching with interest.

 

At first, nothing seems amiss. A few cities are built, the beginnings of armies are born, and resources are available to all. The five territories on the board are all so small and self-contained that there’s little else outside of self-improvement going on. Cordelia is the first to reach out, starting up a trade negotiation between herself and Nah. Lumber for wheat. Standard enough.

 

Slowly, Tharja watches as the game board evolves into a centre of war and chaos spreading outwards, a direct contrast to the social and technological advancements to be found within the cities.

 

As close as they are, this is clearly a game that means something important to the Shepherds. This is obviously a regular ritual of theirs, one that Tharja and her family have been invited to partake of: a sign of blessing and acceptance from one small, tight-knit group to another.

 

A few more turns in and she realizes that this is a friendship-breaking type of game when played by those with weaker bonds than the group of students who have gathered in her house.

 

Tharja finds herself seated between Cordelia and Robin, both of whom turn to her conspiratorially before doing something that invariably leads all the other players to groan. Though she herself has never had a mind for tactical strategy or the inner workings of infrastructure, it becomes clear that the two younger women are more than knowledgeable enough to make a difference in the outcome of every turn. As she learns more about what’s happening on the board, Tharja watches Robin and is surprised at the strategic routes she takes.

 

About half an hour into the game, Robin’s army decimates Gaius’s scouting party after it comes a little too close to one of her newly acquired territories. The look on the carrot-topped man’s face is comedic, pleading with Robin for mercy. “Don’t do it, Bubbles!”

 

She does not grant his request. Within the space of two more turns Gaius has lost a quarter of his land to Robin’s army, as well as his monopoly on a particularly rich iron mine.

 

Tharja is almost amazed at the facility with which Robin continues to develop technology in her city’s capital while subjugating the make-believe citizens of “Candylandia”. On the other edge of the board, Nah quietly begins to shore up defenses, sliding past Robin’s notice though Tharja sneaks a small smile at her niece when nobody is paying them much mind.

Nah may not have been a tactical genius during the war, but she’s damn well one of the most intelligent people Tharja has ever known, Robin included.

 

Cordelia and Chrom are engaged in a cold war in the meantime. Chrom struggles to keep his people fed while sending aid to Gaius’s remaining cities. A miscalculation later, and a particularly clever negotiation made by Cordelia, and Chrom loses a fifth of his lands and about the same amount of his wealth. He loses another fifth of his lands to Nah only three turns later, and Robin gives the youngest of the dragonkin a pleased smile that fills Tharja with some wonderful, brief, inexplicable feeling.

Tharja watches with more interest than the others, particularly the Shepherds, who have no doubt seen this all before. Tiki and Nowi are watching Nah the most, but every so often one of them eyes her and it makes her feel self-conscious. Nobody pays attention long enough to notice the colour rising to her cheeks because Robin is making trade agreements and offering gifts with one hand while destroying settlements and stealing technology with the other.

 

“Sorry, Gaius, but you’re done for,” Robin says, and there’s a glimmer of self-satisfaction in her voice. Gaius groans playfully, throwing his hands up in the air. Cordelia and Chrom simply smile, too focused on their ongoing battle of wits to really mind the other side of the board just yet, though of course they are wary to pay attention whenever it is Robin’s turn.

Tharja looks up to find Maribelle, Olivia, and Henry watching, amusement now clear in their eyes. Henry laughs; his loud, chortling _nya ha_ ’s breaking the strangely tense silence of the house. Maribelle and Olivia both say something along the lines of “Robin 32, Gaius 0” before laughing as well.

Tharja looks back down at the board, and is surprised at what she sees.

Gaius’s army has been all but destroyed, and his capitol city is surrounded by Robin’s soldiers. “I’m out then,” he says, though he does not seem either upset or surprised. “That’s a record for me though, isn’t it, Bubbles?”

Robin smiles. “Yep! I’m proud of you,” she offers, before turning her attention to Chrom and Cordelia. Both of them cringe just slightly, as if they know what’s coming.

 

 

As it turns out, Robin becomes notoriously aggressive after taking another player down.

 

 

Tharja looks away. It’s just a game. It isn’t real. These aren’t actual resources, none of these cities and villages exist, and all of these lives and soldiers are just _numbers_. They aren’t real. When this game is over everything will be fine, and the only things any of them might walk away with are a sense of appreciation for the strategies used, a bit of pride, either wounded or bolstered, and the knowledge that there will always be a chance to do it all over again differently next time.

 

 

And yet something about this upsets her.

 

 

She barely pays attention to the rest of the game, and when the Shepherds all shuffle out after the appropriate greetings she returns to the living room and just…sits there.

 

Hours later, Tiki and Nowi mill about, all nervous, curious energy, but it’s Nah who plops down on the couch and almost literally shakes her out of her thoughtful state.

“You look like you just found out that one of us died or something,” she says, and Tharja shakes her head. Vigorously, because that’s something she can’t imagine happening; doesn’t want to imagine happening.

“Why would you say that?”

“To shock you into talking,” Nah says, shrugging because death is an abstract concept in this world with healthcare and science and a decided lack of both Wyrmslayers and Books of Naga. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Tharja nods, “I suppose.”

Nah grins and gives her a hug before asking, voice serious and much too heavy for somebody her size, “So what’s bothering you? It’s about Robin, isn’t it?”

Tharja nods, because it’s hard to explain what she’d noticed in words. Hard to explain what it is about Robin that makes her think twice about this whole friendship thing, makes her think that there’s something off about her own existence in this scenario. It’s so difficult to make sense of any of her thoughts that Tharja just mumbles something about how she’s tired and Nah lets her go without another word.

 

 

As she climbs the stairs it becomes clear.

 

 

She’s been afraid of what it will be like when the time comes for Robin to hear the truth. She’s been so focused on this fear, so concerned about what might become of them, that she hasn’t realized what’s been going on all around her this whole time. She’s allowed herself to think that this Robin is the same, the exact same as the Robin she’d first lost. All of the important similarities had made it so easy.

 

And yet.

 

Tharja realizes that she’s still learning about who Robin is. It isn’t just how brutal the younger woman has proven herself to be in make-believe war that unnerves Tharja. There’s so much more she potentially (most probably) doesn’t know, because she’d automatically assumed that the basic tenets of Robin’s persona had remained intact throughout the lives and lives and lives Robin has lived.  What is most unsettling is that fundamentally, this Robin is bound to different, an individual, and Tharja has been tricking herself into thinking otherwise. This Robin, this Robin who’s given her a chance after centuries of waiting, this Robin is _not_ her wife; and that scares her because…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It isn’t easy, learning to love somebody new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may be sweaty and tired and a little crazy-eyed, but dang it I managed to get this done before it was too late to call it a Sunday update so TAKE THAT DEADLINES. Next update will be on Sunday, or earlier if things go well.
> 
> Also, I just need you all to know how much I love you. I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough for the discerning folk of AO3 but so far my welcome has been so lovely and warm that I'm always psyched to keep on writing for y'all.
> 
> [Come chill with me on tumblr!](https://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com) I mean, I don't do much except plug this story, but that can change.


	18. Bits and Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja and Robin build a relationship one piece at a time.

Nagamas is a blur.

 

New Year’s is a blur.

 

The beginning of the second semester, though her schedule remains exactly the same thanks to all her year-long courses, is a blur. The only things that register in Tharja’s mind as all of these events are going on are that a) she’s bonding with her family, as per usual; b) she’s befriending the Shepherds in a deeply meaningful way; and most importantly, c) she and Robin are growing closer and closer. Every day, Tharja is discovering that there is so much about this Robin to discover.

 

So much more about this Robin to love.

 

She revels in each new observation she makes on her own, and it’s a miraculous feeling, falling in love again. Tharja isn’t quite sure why she’d been so afraid of it.

Falling in love with Robin is just as easy as it had been the first time. Actually, it’s easier, she thinks. There are less people constantly clamouring for Robin’s attention, and there isn’t a war threatening to take them to the grave with every second that passes. The reincarnated Shepherds support Tharja and Robin in their…whatever this is…and are an encouraging, lovely group of people. Tharja doesn’t have to follow closely behind Robin, watching every single thing the girl does, and all for one simple, heart-stoppingly wonderful reason.

Robin likes her.

She likes her, and Tharja thinks that maybe, _just maybe_ , Robin might even be starting to love her.

It’s all conjecture, still, but Tharja feels that she can hope for this, this one thing. She hasn’t felt much like hoping for anything ever since…well, she can’t remember now. Regardless, this is important, and Tharja shares her hopes with Tiki one night when it’s just the two of them. It isn’t that she doesn’t trust the others, because she does— _Naga_ how she trusts them—but Tiki was the first person to recognize Tharja’s pain. She was the first to share in Tharja’s misery: the ceaseless monotony of wanting and watching for any signs of change, of never being rewarded in spite of all the long, quiet years of waiting.

What Tharja is feeling now, this feeling that maybe things will turn out better than they ever have, is something that Tiki can see, can almost touch as if it were a tangible thing and not just a groundswell of emotion beating in Tharja’s chest.

She feels more alive now than she can remember being since meeting Naga in the desert.

 

After centuries upon centuries of Tharja chasing and chasing and chasing, finally, _finally_ , her relationship with Robin does not begin on a one-sided note. It’s spectacular, really, how much one small difference of circumstance can lift her dark mood and make her feel lighter than—well, lighter than she’s ever felt. Tharja loves how new this feeling is, surprised as she is that there are still some things in the world that feel new to her.

 

And then of course, reality sets in once more, and there is yet another challenge to be surmounted.

 

***

 

She isn’t sure if it’s her fault; if living for so long has made her less observant as opposed to more so, but it isn’t until almost halfway through the final exam period that Tharja realizes the issue in her friendship with Robin. Between the two classes that have already written their finals, the one class that was unfortunate enough to get their exam placed on the last day of the period, and the two thesis students who have yet to present their research, Tharja is stretched so thin that she barely has time for her family, let alone the Shepherds.

Thankfully all of them are equally as busy.

Well, except for Robin. As Cordelia mentioned in the brief period of days between Nagamas and New Year’s, Robin has never been one to actively study. Instead she seems to just absorb the knowledge she needs, like a sponge. Sure, her marks are never quite as good as Cordelia’s own, or even Maribelle’s, something to which Tharja herself can attest, but Robin’s usually right behind them. Her grades are still amongst the best in the class, and are perhaps more impressive considering how little she seems to care for them.

That could also just be Tharja’s bias talking.

Tharja is surprised that her wife’s hard-fought, ever-extending genius could carry over into a lifetime where Robin lacks diligence toward her studies, but she sees the glimmers of some strange work ethic that underlie the younger woman’s behaviour; it’s convincing enough that she doesn’t see any reason to try to get Robin to change. The unconcerned air she carries around with her makes it impossible to worry about her academic progress anyway, and Tharja just doesn’t bother.

That doesn’t stop her from being just a little bit harsher on Robin’s exams than on anybody else’s. The younger woman will have to learn that sometimes hard work is necessary, and when is a better time to learn such an important lesson than right now?

As if to accentuate just how intelligent and unconcerned she is with her remaining exams Robin drops by Tharja’s office one afternoon, promising that she’ll be brief. When Tharja invites her in, the white-haired girl says, “We’ve been friends for more than half a year now, and I still know so little about you. Sometimes, it feels like I’m the only one sharing.”

“Sharing?” Tharja flips through the mountains of paper on her desk: a mess of half-marked exams, essays awaiting her comments, final copies of the exam that Robin shouldn’t be seeing yet, and administrative papers that she was supposed to hand in last week. She’s so flustered that she doesn’t quite understand what Robin is trying to say. “What do you mean?”

Robin laughs in a reserved, gentle way that Tharja knows is her polite, not-quite-patronizing laugh. “No, never mind I said anything. I’m sorry to drop in on you while you’re so busy, Tharja. I’ll see you at the exam.”

Tharja looks up just quick enough to catch a glimpse of Robin’s fond smile before the younger woman is gone, and at the moment she’s too busy to feel wistful about it.

_Gods, why is April such an awful, awful month?_

 

She doesn’t really understand Robin’s question until it’s rather late in the night, and when she does, the understanding is underscored by what must be a non-fatal heart attack of sorts. She’d almost forgotten the truth, the real reason why she agreed to become friends with Robin in the first place. It’s crazy to think that she could forget something important, almost impossible, but Tharja is the first to admit that she’s been trying to distance herself from the gravity of her life’s mission ever since seeing Robin again in this time.

She doesn’t manage to get to sleep that night, for the first time in quite a while. Instead, she’s kept awake by her questions, a never-ending one-two combination that doesn’t cease and doesn’t slow down.

“How can I tell her the truth, that the dreams she’s been having are real memories? How can I tell her that I’ve been waiting for her for almost two thousand years?”

 

***

 

Being unable to come up with any good way to broach the topic on her own, Tharja consults her family, as she has taken to doing for almost everything concerning Robin. Though it should be worrying that she seems to have lost the ability to make most major decisions for herself, Tharja doesn’t really care. That’s what family is for, isn’t it? To help you with the hard things in life?

She asks Anna first. Of all of them Anna is the only one still able to access an Outrealm Gate, and though she remains with them throughout the week, her weekends are mostly unpredictable and it’s rare to find her at home. She also manages to give the most direct advice. Exactly the kind of advice that Tharja needs right now. Now, if only she could find the still-somehow-slightly-mysterious-Anna.  

She gets lucky; on Sunday evening she catches Anna right after a particularly lucrative trip—if the look on the redhead’s face is anything to go by—and she lays down her question in the simplest way possible, because Anna appreciates directness.

“How do I tell Robin the truth?”

“What about?” Anna rubs a golden chalice with a cloth, pleased when the grime begins to melt away under the strength of modern-day cleanser. Tharja doesn’t even want to know what mixture of chemicals is in the bottle at Anna’s feet. “Thar?”

“Don’t call me that.” She resists the urge to pout because she hasn’t been a child in almost forever. “About the situation we’re in. You know: her reincarnation, my conditional mortality, Naga’s rules and specifications…all that?”

“Oh!” Anna takes a moment to set the chalice down before she turns her full attention to Tharja. Her classic “Anna” pose, one finger coyly tapping her chin, is strangely comforting. “Where is this coming from?”

Tharja repeats what Robin said in her office. After a beat, she adds, “I want her to get to know me, Anna, you know that…but I don’t know how to start. Besides, getting to know me entails getting to know what I’ve done for her, and…what I’ve done over and over again. The things I’m not proud of, the things that make me look—” she waves a hand around in a series of quick, vague motions—“like a bad person.”

Anna’s finger taps away at her chin the way it only does when she already knows what to say, but is trying to think up a better way to say it. “You may want to…ease her into it.”

“Is there any way to do that, really?” _Because if there is, please share it._

"Well I mean, logically speaking, there _should_ be some way to do it,” Anna says. “You mentioned she’s been having dreams? Like, dreams that are actually memories?”

Tharja nods. “She hasn’t really told me what kind of dreams they are, but I assume they’re some of the less important, mostly small things. She hasn’t asked me anything that would lead me to think otherwise.”

“So as far as you know, she’s unaware of our bloody history, including the parts you’ve played, and the parts she wasn’t even technically involved with…or that she was involved with, but in a roundabout way.” Anna pauses to rub another few flecks of grime from the chalice in her lap. “And she’s also unaware of your tragically romantic, storied past.”

“Yes.”

“So start by dropping hints, I guess? The girl is smart, just like our Robin was. She’s bound to pick up on things if you’ll just provide her some of the smaller details.” The redhead looks as if she’ll say more, but Tharja notes the haggard look around Anna’s eyes and excuses herself with a word of thanks.

She doesn’t want to know how Anna is still able to access the Outrealms, but it’s obviously draining if it can make a dent in even the Secret Seller’s seemingly unstoppable energy.

 

***

 

Tharja doesn’t get a chance to speak to anybody else on Monday as she’s the only person at home; everybody else either has to supervise an exam, or, in Nah’s case, write one. The first person to get home later in the day is Anna, and Tharja thinks that she can still see a glimpse of extreme fatigue in the other woman’s eyes. She offers to make Anna a snack, something light, and sets about doing that once the woman has nodded her weary head and somehow pulled her body up the stairs.

As Tharja is cutting up apples and strawberries and whatever other fruits she can find, Nowi bursts into the house with a “THANK NAGA THAT’S OVER!” before running into the den and flopping, rather loudly, onto the couch. Tharja holds back a laugh, making sure she’s completely composed before she calls out to the other woman.

“How bad was it?” After a moment she adds, “Do you want me to cut up some fruit for you?”

“Ooh, fruit bowl! Yes please!” Tharja hears Nowi’s clapping hands over the sounds of the running water. “It was _dreadful_ , Tharja. Dreadful.”

“What was dreadful?” Anna smiles softly as she joins Tharja in the kitchen. Her quick merchant’s hands help to separate the cut fruit into three equally-portioned bowls. Though it would be pointless to bring it up, Tharja is amazed at how deftly Anna manages in spite of the hang of her head.

“Today’s exam!”

“Ah,” Anna says, winking at Tharja as they enter the den. “I figured it would be something like that.”

The manakete bounces up into position as a bowl of fruit is offered to her. Around a mouthful of strawberries, Nowi says, “I just don’t understand why they insist on being so difficult sometimes. It’s like none of them really reads the question anymore, so they’re constantly having to ask me what 5 means, or what I’m trying to get them to do for 12, which, if they’d bothered to read the question, is _right there on the page in front of them!_ ”

They all share a moment of silence in disdain for such students. Tharja isn’t really all that bothered by that particular habit, but then again, she also hasn’t had to deal with it very much in the last fifty years. She supposes it must be something of her reputation preceding her, and though she doesn’t think that Nowi needs to change her teaching style or the way she interacts with the students, it would certainly help if the dragonkin were just the slightest bit more professional; maybe then her students wouldn’t think it so funny to get “silly Professor Guire” all worked up for no reason.

She doesn’t say that, however, because Nowi seems to be in a bit of a mood and she really wants to ask for the woman’s perspective. Tharja watches her friend’s face, trying to gauge if Nowi is too tired to want to talk. It doesn’t seem like it, but she also doesn’t really know how to change the topic so that it looks as if she’s not trying to fish for advice like how she normally does. It’s starting to feel like she’s imposing her problems on everybody else, never mind that they all have their own demons to fight.

“Hey Tharja, did you give any thought to what I said yesterday?” Anna pops a grape into her mouth, jaw working to accommodate her strange habit of trying to peel the skin off with her teeth.

“Yes,” Tharja says, “but I wasn’t entirely sure how to…you know, _ease_ Robin into it.”

“Ease Robin into what?” Nowi asks, and it’s only then that Tharja realizes that Anna has given her the perfect segue. Sometimes the woman is too sharp for her own good. Perhaps that’s why Tharja had always been wary of her and her many sisters.

“Robin mentioned how it’s been more than half a year and her friendship with Tharja still seems really…one-sided,” Anna offers, casting a sheepish glance at the dark-haired woman in question.

Tharja doesn’t respond. She’s too busy staring at her nails, wondering if now would be an appropriate time to begin to chew the well-trimmed edges in the same quiet, insecure way she’d stopped doing about three hundred years ago. It’s a disgusting habit, to be sure, but something about it was always comforting, even after she’d supposedly outgrown nail-biting.

Perhaps sensing the possibility of what will come, Anna’s hand, the one that isn’t using a fork as a spear against an army of apple slices, pulls Tharja’s arm gently. It’s a simple gesture, but effective at stopping the habit from kicking in at full force. Tharja breathes in deeply. Nowi smiles at her, this time with a piece of apple in the place of her small, even teeth. She laughs, then breathes again. In. Out. _Now, speak._

 

“I want to let her in, but I don’t know how. Please, help me?”

 

 

 

***

 

 

Emboldened by the support of two of the people closest to her heart, Tharja decides to try dropping a few hints about her conditional immortality. Though both Nowi and Anna agreed that starting off with such a big reveal would be catastrophic if done foolishly, they’d also both admitted that something like that would take effort to believe, hence the small hints.

 

Easy enough.

 

Tharja doesn’t actually have any plans to see Robin socially until the end of the exam period.  They’ll both have much lighter schedules by then, though she’s teaching a summer course as well—half, she admits, in an attempt to teach students whom she doesn’t know on a personal level. Robin is also taking a summer course, but, thankfully, not the same one she’s teaching.

“If I want to graduate on schedule,” Robin says when Tharja asks for clarification of her course choice over a cup of coffee, “I need to do something in the math and logic vein. So I’m doing The Logic of Reasoning: Values, Ethics, and the Nature of Morality.”

“Sounds interesting,” Tharja says, trying to ignore the way that Robin’s roguish wink makes her feel in the pit of her stomach. “Will Cordelia or any of the others be joining you?”

“Cordy, yes, and Mari as well. None of the boys are interested, and Livvy is teaching a dance workshop three days out of the week until August, so she can’t.”

It takes Tharja a moment to get the nicknames, simple as they are, sorted out in her head. She’d known of Robin’s penchant for shortening the names of her closest companions even in her first life, but those nicknames had only been used in private moments, when Robin could afford to forgo decorum. The current time is very forgiving of such informalities, of course, and Robin seems to like abusing this forgiveness.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 

“It should be easier for you with those two around,” Tharja says, smiling at the way the light hits Robin’s hair and brightens up her whole face.

“Yeah,” Robin says, sipping her cup—the same Plegian tea she loves—with the air of somebody who’s getting ready to drop a figurative bomb on their conversation partner. Tharja blinks back surprise because isn’t _she_ supposed to be the one dropping a figurative bomb? There’s really no other way to emphasize the enormity of this potentially (definitely) life-altering secret of hers.

“Robin?” Said woman looks up expectantly, and Tharja knows in an instant that she isn’t ready to say “Do you believe in reincarnation?” the way she’d thought would be a good way to get the ball rolling. Instead she says, “I…I remember taking courses in math and logic in my school days.” She had done so, too…just, centuries ago, and then, recently, through private tuition. “I’m surprisingly good at both, so if you ever need help, I hope you know you can ask me.”

There’s a look of surprise on Robin’s face, and Tharja wonders why until the surprise fades into a broad grin. “Tharja! That’s probably the first thing you’ve said to me that was more about yourself than school…I mean, sort of!”

“Oh?”

“Yes! This is a breakthrough!” Robin laughs and digs into the pocket of her jeans for her phone. “Must. Inform. Everybody.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Robin.” Tharja can’t help but laugh a little at the frantic typing sounds Robin’s fingernails produce as she clicks out a message that’s probably far wordier than it needs to be. “If it means that much to you, however, I will try to share more about myself with you.” _Because I love you and your goofball antics, and the way the sun makes your hair look like starlight._

Robin straightens up visibly, the mirth from only seconds before seeming to disappear. One hand reaches across the table and takes hers into its warmth, and Tharja knows this feeling, knows this scene. Robin is looking at her, into her eyes, mouth smiling but in a serious way. The words “I would love that, Tharja” fall from her lips, and Tharja sees a slightly older Robin with short, sandy brown hair and a patch obscuring her scarred right eye from view. They’re sitting close together in the dark of a tavern inn. Robin’s thumb is tracing small circles on the back of her hand.

 

She shakes her head and the moment ends, but Robin’s still there: a bit younger, white-haired, both eyes shining with that same familiar light, still smiling, still making tiny circles in her skin. Tharja smiles back.

 

***

 

Slowly, Tharja builds up the courage to bring up little details of her life and the things that make up her person, deciding it’s safer to start with herself and work outwards.

 

Her favourite colour is purple: deep, dark, comforting purple.

 

Though she has a sweet tooth, she tries to avoid overindulging to protect her figure, because her appearance matters to her more than it should.

 

She’s afraid to be a mother, but she wants to one day have children of her own—she doesn’t tell Robin it’s because she wants Noire back. She wants Morgan. She wants to give them the life she’d never let them have with her, and this time she wants to be there to watch them grow.

 

The first time she’d fallen in love, she’d been little more than eighteen years old and mostly apathetic to the rest of the world.

 

Tharja doesn’t know if she’s doing this sharing thing right, but it feels good to do it, and Robin seems pleased at every revelation, no matter how small. The younger woman devours this new information with gusto, holding it tightly to herself as Tharja becomes more than just the elusive woman she’d once kissed. She wonders if slowly, the bits and pieces are coming together for Robin, helping the younger woman learn who she is. From the way that Robin’s smile seems to grow, she can only assume that it’s working.

 

 

 

If only this were all it took to finish their love story; but of course, Tharja knows better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all know the drill! Chapter 19 should be up by Friday, but if it isn't feel free to yell at me [on Tumblr](http://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com)! I get distracted by Story of Seasons, Fates, and Sailor Moon a lot so...yeah. I know I say it all the time, but the end is near...ish!


	19. Incertitude, Mounting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which something happens that makes Tharja wonder what exactly is going on.

Sharing some things about herself while hiding others requires an interesting bit of juggling on Tharja’s part. It _has_ become slightly easier, perhaps because of the feeling of freedom and levity that seems to come with the Ylissean summer, but there are still times when Tharja knows she is very dangerously close to slipping just a tad too far into the truth. Of course, the universe knows this too, can see it, can sense her trepidation, and the universe has yet to forget that Tharja is its current favourite plaything.

 

Tharja has come to dislike the universe in general, but on a lazy Friday afternoon out with Robin and Henry, those feelings become a rather confused mess.

As with most other feelings in Tharja’s life as it currently stands.

 

They’re walking through a park near Henry’s former house, his parents’ home, for reasons almost unknown to Tharja. Everything seems to be going just fine, perfectly fine, until Henry’s phone beeps once, then twice, and he looks down and unlocks the screen with hands that shake a little too much to be normal, and then Henry himself looks more shaken up than Tharja can ever remember him being.

It's times like these that she remembers that this Henry, with his shadowed past and his abusive parents, and the small wall of protection his friends have formed around him, is not the young mage who had revelled in blood and gore and death. This Henry, brilliant though he is, morbid though he sometimes may seem, is still just a boy at heart; a young man with a broken past and a chance at a brighter future than he believes to be waiting for him. Even now Tharja can see that, can see Henry’s promise even though he’s leaning on Robin’s shoulder as he walks, slumped over, like a dying man.

Tharja walks behind the two friends at the first sign of low whispers. Whatever it is, Henry isn’t ready for her to know, and she respects that. The Shepherds will never learn how she knew them before they’d even been born in this time, not having been affected by the memories that Robin has been seeing more and more frequently, and though she knows that she shouldn’t feel so badly about that, she does. It is only fair then, that they keep some of their secrets, as she has no reason not to keep some her own.

That being said, she does wonder what it is that has the normally (falsely) cheerful Henry all torn up. From the looks of sympathy that pass Robin’s face as her friend speaks, Tharja assumes that it isn’t something too easily dealt with. Perhaps it is something about his parents, as that topic has always been one that he refuses to broach, not just with Tharja, but with most people who aren’t Robin and Cordelia. “You two should sit and talk,” she says to Robin as they come upon a bench. “I’m going to walk around a bit.” She hopes that Henry hasn’t heard her whispers; she wouldn’t want him to feel like a burden.

Robin smiles, but her eyes are apologetic. Clearly whatever has happened is something unexpected. Tharja begins to wander away, surprised that she does not feel bitterly about being unnecessarily separated from Robin. _Maybe I’m maturing_? The thought makes her laugh, though not too loudly. She’s well past the age for _maturing_ , thank you very much.

The sun is settled nicely, seemingly sitting atop a cloud and looking so picturesque that Tharja isn’t sure if she wants to swoon—inwardly—or vomit—mentally, of course. The contrast of those two actions is at first confusing. Something has come over her and she isn’t sure what it is. After looking back at Robin, whose hand is now rubbing soothing circles over Henry’s arms in his long-sleeved shirt, the answer becomes clear.

It’s Robin. It’s being near her and speaking with her and just being able to look at her and smile and not feel like the world will punish her for it. Tharja knows that being with Robin has been mostly good for her, but there are also some days when she feels a lot like her old self. The immature self that had clung to Robin’s sleeve and almost begged for quick, steamy encounters in the bathing tent, and the barracks…and…that’s beside the point. The impatient, impertinent self who had disobeyed orders and almost ruined Robin’s careful planning battle after battle because she didn’t trust anyone other than herself (and eventually Noire and Morgan) to keep her lover safe.

 

The secretly self-deprecating self who had been so surprised to hear Robin accept her proposal that she had cried well into the night and until the next morning out of joy and relief. She remembers how patient Robin had been, how understanding and gentle, almost exactly like how she is right now on that bench with Henry. Tharja doesn’t know why, can’t pinpoint a reason, but she feels so badly for him and yet so very proud of Robin.

 

Henry eventually leaves, apologizing to Tharja for ruining their supposed-to-be fun-filled afternoon, and she’s surprised at how gentle her own voice sounds when she tells him that it’s alright, that they’ll have other days. “Besides, at my age, this is about as long as I can take being away from my spot on the couch.” Henry laughs at her small, sad attempt at a joke; she remembers that she’s not old enough to make such a quip, in his mind. It isn’t as hollow a laugh as she’s used to getting from him, but it isn’t the familiar _nya ha_ of which she has grown decidedly fond.

 

Maybe Henry is a little too tired to lie to the world today.

Just like her.

 

Robin presses a hand lightly against Tharja’s arm. “We could still go do something, if you’d like…or would you prefer to just go home?”

“It’s up to you,” Tharja says, hoping that her smile is not too doting, that her eyes are not saying how happy she is to be alone with Robin in spite of how much she truly pities the horrible life moment Henry seems to be dealing with. “I’m fine to do something else if you’d like to.”

Robin doesn’t say anything, only smiles and shakes her head gently. “Maybe we could just walk like this? Just for a while; we wouldn’t even need to talk, if you don’t want us to.” She leans in as she speaks, the degree of nearness just a bit too close to be considered platonic, and Tharja feels guilty for not immediately correcting her.

When Robin eventually does pull away, Tharja notes a light blush on the former’s cheeks, and a small smile gracing her lips.

Robin looks so sweet in the sunlight, so youthful and carefree in spite of the obvious worry in her eyes as she looks back at the bench one last time. Henry is long gone, but there’s something in that gaze that Tharja is surprised to see. It looks a little like regret, but she doesn’t know what could possibly be the source.

She doesn’t ask. They just continue to walk down the pathway, making the occasional comment about the park’s flower beds, or the sky, or whatever other little things pop into mind. It’s nice. Still, Tharja catches that strange expression on Robin’s face, and she wants to ask, but it would probably be rude.

Instead, she says, “I really don’t know how you can enjoy walking about so much, Robin. I must just be getting along in age…just getting old.” Naga knows how old she feels.

“Please, Tharja, twenty-eight isn’t _old._ ” Robin laughs, “Why, my sister is older than you!”

Tharja freezes for a moment and realizes only seconds later that the pang in her gut is guilt. Robin notices the delay and her eyes are immediately on Tharja’s both asking a question and searching for an answer at the exact same time. “What is it?”

“I—I’m _not_ twenty-eight years old.” Tharja barely manages to control herself long enough to resist the urge to slap a hand over her mouth, and after a few seconds she blurts out, “I’ve been faking my age on legal documents for a while now.”

Robin’s eyes blink once, then twice, and then her head tilts to the side, a mass of white hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Why?” Tharja takes a deep breath, afraid that she’ll answer too abruptly and end up ruining _everything._ The simple curiosity behind the question doesn’t help.

“I…” Tharja reaches up to sweep her bangs out of her eyes—she’s now just a little bit sorry she hadn’t listened when Nowi offered to trim them for her. As she brings her hand back down, Robin reaches out and takes it, which confuses her until she realizes what it is that has caught the younger woman’s attention.

This morning, of all possible mornings that it could have happened, she forgot to put away her ring. Her wedding ring. The very same ring that Robin had once placed upon her finger, accompanied by the words “I do” and “forever”, as the rest of the Shepherds watched on and cheered. The very same ring that Tharja wears around the house when it’s just her and her family, a small piece of her first life that she just hasn’t been able to leave behind.

It’s unmistakeably a wedding ring, the intricately wrought strands of gold forming an unbroken twine around her pale skin. She knows without asking that Robin is aware, so it surprises her to hear Robin’s next words.

“This is beautiful…what is it?” Tharja brings herself to meet the younger woman’s eyes, and just as she’d thought, Robin isn’t asking for the sake of knowing. The look on her face says she already knows what the ring on Tharja’s finger means, but Robin must see a reason to feign ignorance.

Tharja can’t be sure what reason that is.

“I…” She can’t bring herself to say it. This isn’t at all how she’d imagined beginning her disclosure of the truth to Robin. If she lies now though…She doesn’t know what to do.

Robin’s thumb presses a little too closely to the pale gold, and out of reflex, Tharja pulls her hand away. The motion is a little too jerky, a little too defensive, and what was once only a hairsbreadth becomes at least a foot of space between Tharja and Robin. Robin’s face looks as if she’s been stung.

 

They’ve been walking all this time and it’s only now that they’ve come to a stop, right in the middle of the path, that Tharja realizes that the sun is beginning, ever so slightly, to drop out of the sky.

“Tharja?” Robin asks, and now she looks betrayed somehow, though Tharja knows that realistically Robin has no right to feel betrayed; not yet, at any rate. “Tharja, is that a wedding band?”

“I…yes,” she says, because it simply wouldn’t do to lie about the ring, and she knows that. That would only lead to complications down the road; complications that she would much rather avoid, if possible. This whole mess is complicated enough without her creating even more unnecessary problems. “I wear it as a reminder,” she says slowly, hoping that she can mask some of the pain in her voice, “of my first marriage.”

 “A reminder?” Robin echoes. There’s an edge in her voice, a preparedness that Tharja knows can mean one of many things. She imagines that Robin is running through every possible scenario her mind can muster; why would she need a reminder of a past marriage?

Tharja nods, barely meeting Robin’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Then…” the white-haired woman is silent for a minute, then two, until the silence stretches out for at least five minutes. Tharja feels herself growing more and more frantic as the seconds pass in silence. What can she say? What can she do? What does Robin think? “What happened?” Her voice is gentle, coaxing in a way that seems both practiced and yet genuine.

“She left me,” Tharja says, but something about the resulting furrow in Robin’s brow pushes her forward. She continues after a beat, saying, “She promised me she wouldn’t leave me, but then she died…in the line of duty.” Tharja technically isn’t telling any lies, as Robin had believed it her duty as a Shepherd to defend the world against Grima. As a soldier, it _had_ been her duty.

 

That doesn’t stop Tharja from feeling a little sick to her stomach, thinking about how nicely this technicality works out in her favour, but she can’t say anything yet. She can’t.

 

Robin’s face screws up into an unreadable expression, just for a second, and then Tharja thinks she sees a glint of emotion, undetectable, in the younger woman’s eyes.

Her insides freeze.

The end of all their progress is near.

Or not.

 

The gentle pressure of Robin’s grip on Tharja’s wrist returns, and all of a sudden Robin is crying, right there in the middle of the pathway, and Tharja doesn’t know why she’s doing it, but she begins to cry herself.

“I’m so sorry, Tharja,” says Robin, and then, in complete defiance of their “no hugging” rule, Robin’s arms are wrapped around Tharja’s body in a tight embrace. Tharja allows herself a moment of peace in Robin’s hold before she extricates herself from the younger woman’s hug as softly as she can manage.

“Robin? Robin, what’s wrong?”

“I left you, Tharja,” Robin says, sobs forcing the air in and out of her chest, “I left you all alone, and you needed me. I’m so, so sorry. So very, very sorry.” She sounds…different somehow.

Tharja is startled, so much so that her own tears cease to fall as she guides Robin to a bench and holds the white-haired woman. As it would appear, her common sense has been rendered useless following this irrational display of emotionality. “Shh,” Tharja coaxes, trying and failing to recall how she had once calmed her children’s tears.

 

It takes her a moment to realize that she’d never been present to do that.

 

 

 

 

 

When Robin recovers fully, almost fifteen minutes after the onset of her tears, she blinks, staring at Tharja as if she’s not quite sure what has just happened. She blushes and backs away, giving Tharja her space on the bench. A brief questioning later, and it becomes clearer to the once-sorceress that something strange is at play here. Robin doesn’t remember a thing. She seems confused by the wetness on her cheeks and the concern on Tharja’s face, but when it becomes apparent that Tharja is no longer willing to be out and about, she offers to take the older woman home.

_I left you, Tharja…I left you all alone, and you needed me._

 

As Tharja walks with Robin to the younger woman’s borrowed car, she remembers Robin’s apologies, and she almost stops right in front of a car trying to back into a parking spot.

_I left you, Tharja…_

_I left you all alone…_

_And you needed me…_

I.  _I. **Me.**_

 

Tharja tries her best to shake off the strange feeling growing in her chest, but it’s difficult to do. Robin is polite as she starts the car, her usual friendly, ever-so-slightly teasing demeanour returned in full swing, but Tharja finds herself too confused to respond in kind. The smile on Robin’s face is both understanding and apologetic, in spite of Tharja’s insistence that there is nothing to apologize for.

Just what can this mean?

 

 

***

 

 

She comes home looking worse for wear than she has ever since befriending the Shepherds and her dear Robin. From the look Tharja catches Nowi and Tiki exchanging, she knows that they’ve decided tonight is not the kind of night for them to press the topic. She’s grateful, and so instead of returning to her room after dinner she joins her family in the den.

It’s Nah’s turn to choose the movie, and predictably she chooses the second of three films made for the show she’s currently re-watching; they watched the first film only two days ago by Nowi’s request, and, time permitting, they may even see the third before the end of the night.

“The animation and art has aged really well,” Tharja says, because the silence is so oppressive she’s almost positive her chest is imploding from the weight. That, and she just wants to watch the movie and not think about anything like how confusing everything is. “They must have worked so hard on this,” she says, hoping that nobody will comment on how fussy she seems. There’s a round of cautious agreement. Though Tharja’s strange mood is clearly bothering her Nah simply curls up on the couch, using her aunt’s thighs as a pillow.

The movie is technically what Robin and her friends would call “older”, or even “retro”, “classic”, or “vintage”. It’s from slightly before the turn of the millennium, and while many of Nah’s new shows and movies are technically superior overall, Tharja would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy this particular series. It’s one of the only series her entire family has watched, and more than once, at that. A family favourite, in spite of its flaws.

Though the language is not one she knows with any accuracy, the subtitled words flickering in and out of view on-screen are words she has memorized through years and years of viewing. Nah, ever the brilliant linguist, mutters the original words under her breath, occasionally complaining about “inaccurate subbing work”. It’s cute, and Tharja’s fingers stroke the younger woman’s head at each tiny grumble.

The story is typical fare for the show’s writers; this time about a man’s dream and the woman who will see it through, a cat in love, and a wintry villainess. It isn’t as gripping as the last film in the series, in Tharja’s opinion, but on this particular day something about it hits her harder than it ever has. She doesn’t realize that she’s crying softly until the normally ditzy heroine delivers her rousing speech to the wicked villain.

_“We fall in love…Our hearts may break…We lose sleep longing for someone…There are many painful times like these. But that’s how we know that we’re alive. If there are painful times, when we get over them…times of happiness always arrive!”_

The world, no, the universe, will be hers, the villain claims, though the heroine defies her, refuses to go down without saving the world, saving her friends.

“ _You’re too selfish to know what it feels like to be in love!”_

 

 _Is that me? Am I so selfish as that?_ The question is unwarranted, perhaps, and most certainly unwanted, but it presents itself to her proudly, as if it were doing her a favour. The speech is one that she has always liked, but in a more general sense; and it isn’t until now that she realizes that she has fallen in love, and her heart has broken, and that she has lost sleep for years upon years upon years for this love….yet she doesn’t know if she feels alive.

Lately, perhaps, but before this Robin, had she even believed in the potential for happiness to arrive? Or had she allowed herself to become so blinded by her loneliness? Tharja doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter now. She can’t begin to understand what happened in the park, and now she’s confused and she isn’t sure if she should take it as a sign to begin the process of delivering truth to Robin, who herself is quite clearly muddled up as well.

 

“Auntie Tharja?” Nah’s voice is low and concerned, but Tharja isn’t ready to talk, not yet. Instead she murmurs that it’s nothing, she just loves this part of the movie, and her niece just nods, head still resting on Tharja’s lap. Tharja wipes her eyes carefully on the backs of her sleeves, playing at a yawn even though she knows that everybody else is aware that she’s been crying.

 

It must be even more obvious when the lights come on, but nobody bothers her about it. She’s grateful. It’s too late to start and finish the last movie, so they all agree it would be for the best to pack it in for the night. The clock on the wall says it isn’t really all that late for a summer night, but Tharja isn’t one to argue.

The solace of her room beckons.

 

As she stands before her door, one hand on the knob, a still-small hand reaches up to press gently against her shoulder blade. When Tharja turns, Nah is there, looking like a child again. Her hair is loose, her eyes betraying her fatigue to the world, and Tharja pulls the younger woman into a hug without knowing why.

Nah’s voice is muffled by the fabric of Tharja’s shirt, but her words reach Tharja all the same. “You know that we’re here for you, right?”

She nods. “I know. I just…want a little time to work things out for myself.”

Nah sniffles a little, pulling away slightly so that her wide eyes can take Tharja in all at once, all her sadness and her grief, and her emotions—her fickle, fanciful emotions that have allowed themselves to be triggered by a movie she has watched dozens and dozens of times before. “Okay…is this about your ring? Did Robin see it?”

Of course Nah would notice it. She notices everything, and Tharja wonders if Tiki and Nowi are aware of her morning’s error, if they’ve also linked it to her strange behaviour this evening. Tharja knows without a doubt that Anna has connected the two already.

“It is, little one,” she says, surprising both Nah and herself with the sentimentality of a moniker none of them has bestowed on the household’s youngest in the last two centuries, at least. “And I promise I’ll get you all to help me work out what happened tomorrow morning, but right now, I think I need to be alone.” Nah allows herself to smile before bidding Tharja goodnight, and then they’re all safely in their own rooms and Tharja’s thoughts are not so heavy against her heart. She slips into bed although she isn’t truly tired.

Tharja doesn’t know how it is that they manage it, but her family, simply by being there, is like a balm for her confusion, for her mind in all its restlessness. A balm which is rendered useless only hours later, at the sound of her phone buzzing from within her bag. She searches groggily for it, remembering that the bag was discarded in her haste to be free of outdoor-appropriate clothing.

Who could that be? She knows that the Shepherds have somehow managed to attain her personal number (she suspects through Anna or Tiki) but they wouldn’t bother her this late at night. The message that pops up when she presses the flashing icon is one that she does not expect.

 

From Robin – 03:40

  _We need to talk._

 

Her stomach drops. Before she can reply however, the beeping sound returns; and with shaking fingers Tharja checks the new message. Her stomach drops further and her heart leaps into her throat.

 

From Robin – 03:41

_I had the strangest dream…it felt too real to be a dream. I know you told me you’d tell me what my dreams meant “at the right time” but I can’t ignore this._

To Robin – 03:42

_Robin, what are you talking about?_

 

From Robin – 03:43

_Why did I dream of a ring that matches yours? Who are Morgan and Noire? What aren’t you telling me, Tharja?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I accidentally said "Friday" last week when I meant to say Sunday, but that's okay, because I did it and I'm happy with this chapter, as I hope you will be. Chapter 20 will be up next Friday (and this time that isn't a mistake, because that's a week from now!), and as always, if you want to yell at me, or otherwise just want to talk, please feel free to drop me a line or a few [ over on Tumblr](https://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com)!
> 
> I love you all so much you have no idea.


	20. Tentative Approach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a serious discussion is had.

At first, Tharja hadn’t wanted Tiki and Anna to go ahead with their plans to install a porch swing out front. They had originally suggested it in what would be considered the final years of the 19th century, and only a few years later Tharja finally acquiesced to the idea. Her acceptance had, of course, come at a time when it became obvious that such swings were popular amongst their neighbours.

Tharja looks back on the early days of the family’s porch swing with mild embarrassment. Rather than “keeping up with the Joneses”, installing the porch swing had been a matter of avoiding notice. Their neighbourhood had, by that time, already come to be known as affluent, and to lack a seeming staple of Ylissean furniture would only invite questioning. All of Tharja’s admonishments to act normally about the new purchase didn’t stop Nah and Nowi from making absolute _children_ of themselves from time to time, sitting on the porch swing on hot summer afternoons, popsicles in hand as they yelled out to the neighbours.

Tharja had never been one to do such things; she’d rarely sat outside in the old days, preferring to brood in the cool, dark atmosphere of her bedroom instead.

 

There was no need to add the sun to the list of inanimate objects that mocked her every waking moment.

 

Through the years, the once simple porch swing had evolved, eventually being replaced by a lovely, white-painted daybed style swing, and it was there where an older, less self-conscious Tharja had held many a quiet, concerned conversation with a member of her family. Now, it is a comforting place, a safe space in the outside world. Tharja’s hands find the light blanket they keep outside when the weather is nicer. It’s softness is familiar.

 

This swing, which Tharja once didn’t care for at all, has become a central piece of furniture to her strange little family, and soon, it will be the stage for the most important encounter Tharja will have had in the last few hundred years.

 

***

 

Tharja sits on the edge of the daybed daintily, feet dangling just slightly off the wooden patio floor as she waits for Robin to arrive. She holds a mug full of coffee closely to her chest in spite of the temperate weather. It’s her second cup of the morning, from the pot she’d stupidly prepared before coming outside. Though she knows logically that she wouldn’t have been awake-enough for this inevitable conversation without it, she hopes fervently that the scent of fresh coffee won’t be strong enough to summon her family downstairs before she’s said her piece to Robin.

Tharja sighs, deeply and heavily, in a way that would have made the original Cordelia proud. 

She knows that this entire moment, in the eyes of somebody else, might seem picturesque. It might seem cinematic, even, if one were to lend focus to the subtle rise and fall of her chest, the batting of her eyelashes against the promise of sunlight just beginning to shine through the thin cracks of the city background. She can almost see it in her head. If she tries hard enough, Tharja can almost hear the gentle tones of a lone violin, or perhaps a flute, and a narrator reading off a script that’s been poorly adapted from yet another William Embers novel.

It’s sad, really, for a reason Tharja isn’t sure she can pinpoint.

Sitting on the porch swing, mug in hand, feet mere centimetres from touching the patio wood, she feels like a rather large, rather silly cliché. She hates it. This isn’t a modern-day fairytale; this is her life being dealt with today; in this space, on this swing, on this porch. This isn’t some writer’s little story. _This is my life._

Though she hadn’t planned to divulge the truth to Robin anywhere even _remotely_ near her family’s home, the present situation demands answers. The truth, it seems, has chosen now as its time, and the truth will not be kept waiting. Rushed though she is, Tharja knows she cannot hope for a perfect setting.

Much as she dislikes being so pushed towards this, it would be futile to avoid telling Robin the truth now, and the younger woman deserves better. Deserves better than this lot in life that Tharja seems to be willing to offer her; deserves better than the confusion of her memories coming to her when she doesn’t expect to see them; deserves better than Tharja and the world of issues that she comes with. Robin deserves so, so much better.

She has a right to the truth, and Tharja cannot keep it from her any longer.

The porch swing it is, then.

Tharja takes a sip of her coffee, wondering if it’s actually doing anything to wake her up. She doesn’t feel any different. Robin’s questions earlier that morning were measured and calm, but though the younger woman had tried to hide it Tharja could sense the uneasiness lingering beneath the words. This observation had been met with an almost frantic worry on Tharja’s part. Aside from their rings, what has Robin seen? Has she seen their children: the young man and woman who’d shown up on separate battlefields and gone on to completely charm everybody with their similarities to their tactician mother? _What has she seen?_

Whatever the dream, it obviously involved Morgan and Noire in some capacity. That thought is both sobering and comforting. Tharja knows very well that it could have been something depicting her in a particularly gruesome light. The once-sorceress kicks off the sandals trapping her feet and tucks her legs up and under her on the porch swing, twisting her body to lean against one side of the daybed.

She doesn’t do anything for a while, allowing the gentle rocking motion of the swing to set her at ease, much like a child. Robin will be arriving any minute now. Tharja is apprehensive, understandably, as none of this has gone as planned, and it certainly won’t now. Still, though she knows that she will be the one to need to share the most information this morning, something about the events of the day before has been bothering her.

Why did Robin apologize so personally?

_I left you, Tharja. I left you all alone, and you needed me._

 

 

It doesn’t make any sense. This Robin, this lively, mischievous, caring Robin, has nothing to do with her wife’s sacrifice. She’s a new person, her own person, and Tharja knows she must be putting too much thought into it, but it isn’t _possible_ that that had been her wife speaking through Robin. It isn’t possible, because her Robin is long dead. Two millennia and forty-seven lives’ worth of death has been served to the original grandmaster tactician of Ylisse.

At the same time, it isn’t like Robin to make such a mistake. The younger woman is careful with her language, shrewd even off the game boards, and Tharja has only just begun to understand how very careful Robin is when it comes to the rest of her life. Almost everything, from the way she dresses to the way she speaks, to the way she appears to care about nothing at all; it all seems…strangely calculated, as if she’s had to act a certain way all her life in one domain, while acting a different way in others.

Tharja remembers a hint Cordelia had dropped earlier on in the year. “She can be more difficult to understand than advanced mathematics”.  Robin’s every move is readily likened to calculations that don’t make sense to anybody else; calculations that are absolute gibberish to everybody except for those who are familiar with the concept behind them.

Tharja doesn’t know what could possess a person to have to live so strangely in this time of peace. For a child of this era, it is decidedly odd to be so in tune with how the expectations of others; so willing to shift from one persona to another. She thinks that it might very well be a sign of some past emotional abuse, the way that Robin is so in tune with the calculated value of every smile, every action, every inflection on every word. Surely a healthy home wouldn’t have led to such abilities in a young woman so seemingly “well-adjusted” as Robin.

Regardless of the cause however, Tharja cannot deny that this Robin is much more complicated than she’d originally believed. The words that had come forth from Robin’s mouth only the day before could have been meant to show Tharja the extent of Robin’s sympathy. She has not forgotten that Robin still seems to want her—or to want to bed her, at least.

 

Of course, that means that it can’t have been an accident, that apology; but if it wasn’t, then what was it?

 

It’s early in the morning, too early to be thinking so much, but Tharja can’t help it. Prone to rumination as she is, it’s the silences of solitude that have her running through every single thing she can possibly think of, over and over and over again. Of course, inevitably, these thoughts are of Robin, Robin, and Robin alone.

 

“Good morning, Tharja, may I join you?”

 

Robin’s voice is heavy in the light of the early morning, but Tharja knows it is probably just her mind playing tricks. This Robin isn’t one for theatrics unless they are of a comedic nature, but she tries her best to avoid coming off as melodramatic. Though the matter they are about to discuss is important,  Tharja figures that Robin wouldn’t want to make this any more awkward than it’s bound to be. Of course, being Tharja, she isn’t able to do the same thing that Robin does, and the first thing out of her mouth is a question that completely slips past her very limited filters.

“Why did you apologize to me yesterday?”

“What do you mean?”

Tharja winces because of course of all the times to start forgetting things it would have to be now, at the doorway to what has the potential to be the most pivotal moment of her life. She’s already forgotten how Robin had been dazed and confused following her tearful quarter of an hour; how Robin had been her regular self shortly after recovering, confused only about the tear tracks on her skin and the puffiness of her eyes, but convinced that it hadn’t been anything serious.

 

“Nothing, sorry. I’m still half-asleep.” Tharja is disappointed in herself; has she learned nothing at all?

 

Even now that she is old, so old, has she truly never learned to control herself, to think before speaking? Around others, she has never had this problem, not even since the days of her original youth. Around Robin, however, she has always been too open, too willing to say the first thing that comes to mind, to share everything about herself with Robin. This young woman standing before her could not be more opposite, and only now is Tharja beginning to see the wheels spinning in Robin’s head; the way that her grey-brown eyes aren’t quite as lit up by her soft smile as the rest of her features; the way that she watches Tharja carefully, waiting for some cue to action.

“May I join you, Tharja?” she asks. Her voice is gentler now, but the smile still doesn’t reach her eyes.

Though it has been years since she’s seen this expression, Tharja knows that Robin is wary. _Wary of me?_ The thought is painful, and though she tries her best to mimic the way that Robin is smiling, Tharja cannot help but feel a sharp stinging in her chest. She curls against her side of the daybed in a small, slight movement, hoping that Robin won’t notice it. “Please, do.” Her voice sounds so tiny, so weak. Not at all the way that she knows she should sound.

It isn’t as if Tharja _wants_ to feel this way, but already there’s regret bubbling up in the pit of her stomach. She shouldn’t have invited Robin to come here, to share her thoughts; shouldn’t have agreed when the younger woman asked if she could come by in the early light of the morning, since they’d both been unable to fall back asleep. Robin should be at home, sleeping.

She shouldn’t be standing in front of Tharja, wearing loosely fitted, rolled up jeans and a simple, stylish t-shirt. She shouldn’t be here, and neither should Tharja.

 

 

 

Tharja herself, well, she should be dead.

 

 

 

After all of Tharja’s careful planning; after all of the long night talks with Tiki, and Nowi, and Anna, and Nah; after all of the days spent in dreams and the nights spent wasted for sleep, Tharja almost cannot believe it has come to this. This is not what she imagined for herself, or for Robin. This is not what she planned for herself, or for Robin. Tharja knows that there will be no delaying the truth now, but she only wishes that the circumstances could be better.

She thinks that the only thing holding her back from being truly upset about it all is that Robin is now perched across from her, the length of her legs allowing her feet to hang slightly above the porch wood. Just how Tharja was seated before choosing to make herself more comfortable. Tharja takes confidence in Robin’s silence, glad that at least the younger woman hasn’t started running her mouth with questions.

Waiting until Robin’s eyes are not so focused on her own, Tharja takes a deep breath. Her family is still asleep, all of them tucked into their beds in their respective rooms; even while asleep, their presence gives her courage; silent reinforcements which feed into her poorly composed calm.

After all the attempts, after all the failures, Tharja knows that she has come to learn to account for almost everything. She still has some small amounts of magic left, and can work a simple spell. Should Robin react badly to the news, Tharja expects that, though it will be almost as painful as watching Robin die anew, she will be able to erase their conversation from the younger woman’s memory. The knowledge of such a plan does little to comfort her.

 

Should Robin react positively, however, there are rules that Tharja is finally wise enough to deem necessary, and she will also have to share those with Robin. She will then be able to slowly begin the process of adding to the memories, fleshing them out for the younger woman, answering all her questions, being able to just sit and talk for hours with the woman she’s loved her whole life, once more. The knowledge that this possibility exists makes it difficult to concentrate.

Of course, those are only two possible scenarios and Tharja knows that, especially given the particular personality of the Robin in front of her, she will have to tread carefully. As she is, in this day and age, Robin is something of a wildcard. Tharja worries her bottom lip as discreetly as possible; she didn’t know it was possible to feel so tense in such a non-life-threatening situation.

 

She’s kidding herself when she thinks this, of course.

What is her life, after all, if not Robin?

 

Once again it is Robin who breaks the silence. “Thank you for inviting me over.” It’s strange that Robin’s present self is strangely strict on house etiquette and manners in general (in formal settings only, as Tharja can personally attest to major informalities Robin allows during social gatherings). In her first life, and in the majority of the lives in which Tharja has actually managed to get close to her (or him, or they, as the cases sometimes stood) Robin hasn’t cared much for rules. This is something new.

“Not at all,” Tharja says, feeling that the phrase, though acceptable, is a strange way of saying “you’re welcome”. “So…you wanted to talk about…?” She trails off, not trusting herself to continue. It’s difficult. Tharja can’t decide if she should be leading the conversation, or if it’s Robin’s move to make.

Apparently the other woman can’t decide either, and Tharja would be lying if she said that she’s expected what Robin does next. The younger woman’s shoes—casual, clean white slip-ons of some kind—are promptly discarded, and Robin makes herself comfortable on her side of the daybed. Tharja immediately tenses, still not quite used to the way that Robin’s eyes settle on her; fondly, and yet almost too heavily to bear.

“I had a very… _strange_ dream last night.”

“From what you’ve been telling me this past year, you have strange dreams more often than not,” Tharja says, hoping that her weak attempt at levity will do something to ease the pressure of Robin’s gaze.

It doesn’t help much at all. “Yes, that’s true, but last night was particularly difficult for me,” Robin waits for Tharja to take a nervous, noisy sip from her mug before continuing, “Because this time I felt like I knew the people in my dream, like they were important to me somehow, almost like they were my…” Robin’s voice drops steadily as she approaches the end of her sentence, to the point where the last five words are almost a mystery to Tharja. She thinks that she hears “but that couldn’t be possible” but with no way to know for sure the dark-haired woman sticks to just being quiet.

She sips from her coffee again, waiting for Robin to begin. The younger woman realizes her game quickly enough, and the first thing she says is, “I have a theory about…all of this. Do you want to know what it is?”

 _Not really, no_. Tharja nods.

“I think that what I see when I try to sleep, these dreams, they’re too structured, too _real_ , to be just dreams. There’s no way I can be making all of this up in my head. I’m not a bad storyteller, and my dreams before this all started were fairly interesting when I could remember them, but this feels _different_.”

“Different how?” Tharja asks around the rim of her mug. It takes a lot of energy not to bite down on the smooth porcelain finish; a lot of self-control that she isn’t entirely sure she has.

“They feel real. Like I’ve seen them before, lived them before. Like they’re not dreams at all, but—

“You can’t think—

“Memories.” There’s an air of finality in the word, and Tharja tries to conceal what would have been a very visible flinch.

She doesn’t say anything. Not because she doesn’t know what words to say, but because she isn’t sure if she can say them without fleeing from Robin the second the words have torn free from her lips. With no real reason not to speak, however, Tharja finally manages to pull a question from her own lips, “Memories from where?”

“I’m not sure,” says Robin. The force of her gaze is so heavy that Tharja feels suffocated without knowing why. She can breathe just fine, can’t she? Robin has no power now, nothing like her old self’s magic. Why does she affect Tharja so?

“Any thoughts?” _Keep the conversation moving._

“I’ve considered quite a few things, but the only one that seems to make sense is…,” Robin seems to brace herself, “reincarnation. These memories are _mine._ I feel it.”

Tharja pulls a deep breath into her lungs, trying to appear as if she is perfectly at ease. She should have known. This Robin’s world is open to the possibilities of magic, of worlds unseen, of life after life. Robin, academic though she is, shrewd and calculating though she tries to be, is possessed of a mind open enough to consider what might seem fantastical as factual. Tharja should have known that Robin might discover the truth without really meaning to. She should have known.

Tharja presses her hands more tightly around her mug; the heat is all but extinguished.

She takes another breath; she has been waiting to do this for years upon endless years. To talk to Robin; to share her experiences, and to fill in the gaps of Robin’s still-incomplete memories is all she’s ever tried to do. It’s all she’s ever thought of doing, really; the only thing she’s ever thought completely vital to her survival.

What she’s never accounted for, regardless of the time period and the personality of the Robins who’ve come before this one, is the possibility that Robin will believe her tale without cajoling and assurance, without demands of proof and questions against Tharja’s sanity. Now, as she stares at the young woman perched on the opposite end of the daybed, she feels that it would be silly of her to even entertain such a thought.

But it isn’t silly. Robin herself has brought up the topic, the truth of the situation.

“Are you serious? Or are you trying to open up an important discussion with a joke?” Tharja asks, not trusting herself to be completely honest just yet.

Robin eyes her strangely. “I’m serious. It’s the only way any of this makes sense.” She pauses to flick a speck of invisible dirt from her shoulder before eyeing Tharja once more. “What I can’t figure out just yet, is how _you_ fit in with all of this, Tharja.”

Tharja knows that audibly swallowing down a breath is perhaps the single simplest way to make yourself look suspicious, but she can’t help it when that’s exactly what she does. The way that Robin’s looking at her doesn’t help her either, because there’s something in the younger woman’s eyes that she can’t place. “Robin?”

“Yes?” There’s a grin tugging at Robin’s lips now, something not quite happy.

“If I told you that you were right…what would you say?”

Robin looks visibly surprised, as if she hadn’t expected Tharja to confirm what must have been her final, Hail Mary of a theory. The older woman watches as Robin’s seemingly put-together façade slips away for a second, and Robin looks almost… _guilty._

“If you told me that, I’d have to apologize.”

“Why?”

Robin, who Tharja just now realizes has been inching towards her with every word, is so close that if Tharja leans forward they’ll be touching. “Because I haven’t been completely honest with you, even though I promised myself I would be.” There’s a pause, not quite as meaningful as Tharja thinks it should be, before Robin speaks again. “I’ve been…cruel to you.”

Tharja swallows again. She finds herself echoing Robin’s earlier words. “What do you mean?”

Robin is so close that Tharja can smell the hint of spearmint toothpaste on the younger woman’s breath. Robin’s eyes are so lovely up close, and Tharja knows that they’re having a serious discussion, that it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to lean in and just—

 

“Oh…hello, Robin. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company this morning? You should come in and join us for breakfast!”

 

Tharja groans inwardly as Robin practically throws herself off the daybed, somehow managing to land right on top of her shoes. With greater reluctance than she’d like to admit to feeling, she turns back towards the doorway to her family’s home. Tiki is standing there, body half-obscured by the door. The light at her back can only be coming from the kitchen, and Tharja is sure that Nowi and Nah are already at the stove.

 

“Oh, I…”

“Please, I insist,” Tiki says, ushering Robin in with a wave of her hands. Tharja rises slowly to follow the white-haired girl into the house, only to be stopped by Tiki’s light, yet noticeable grip on her wrist.

 

On Tiki’s face is the biggest shit-eating grin Tharja has ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I did it again. The cliffhanger thing. Kinda. Sorry!  
> For an idea of the swing that Tharja fixated on for the first few hundred words/sat in for the whole chapter, think of something like [ this ](http://porch.hudld.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/The-Best-Porch-Swing-Bed-Plans.jpg).
> 
> Okay, so normally this is where I say that I'll have the next chapter up by next Friday, but actually I won't be able to update for a while. I'm graduating from university tomorrow, and then going to England for 3 weeks. During that time I won't have my laptop.
> 
> Rest assured however, that I will be doing the best I can to write during the trip, and an update should be forthcoming on or before July 20th. Hopefully.
> 
> In the mean time, feel free to drop by and say hi [ on Tumblr! ](http://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com)
> 
> I love all of you so much, you're awesome and I hope this chapter's okay!


	21. Continguous Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a fragile trust is broken.

Everything that _can_ go wrong _will_ go wrong. If that’s true, then Tharja is sure it must only be true for a select few of life’s unfortunates. A particular population.

 

 

Tharja also knows, without a doubt, that of this population, she is certainly a prime example.

 

 

It isn’t that anything disastrous happens during breakfast; if anything, that’s the problem. Robin blends in so seamlessly with Tharja’s tiny mish-mash of a time-displaced family that an onlooker might just assume her to be part of it. From Robin’s seat at Tharja’s right hand to the way she always knows just what to say or do to win a smile from Tiki or a laugh from Nah, it just feels so right.

 

_This can’t be anything but wrong._

 

Truthfully Tharja isn’t sure what Tiki was thinking when she invited Robin to join them. As the one with the most seniority as a professor, Tiki should be the most aware of precisely what they all stand to lose should the wrong person find out about this morning. Even if all that happened was breakfast and light banter, Tharja can think of a few people who would stretch the truth of Robin’s time at the house to devilish lengths.

 

If anything in the world has remained consistent, it is that people are always more inclined towards the scandalous than to the true.

 

“I should really be going; Olivia wanted help finding a gift for Maribelle.”

“Oh, so soon?” asks Anna. “Want anything more before you go?” The question serves to surprise Robin, who looks, for a moment, lost for words at the generosity being laid before her. Contrary to that, Tharja is immediately wary; Anna has never, _ever_ been the one to play the role of genially-pushy-housewife.

Robin recovers during Tharja’s lapse in concentration, and the next thing Tharja hears is the twinkling of Robin’s laughter. “I couldn’t eat another bite, but thank you for offering! And…,” the look in her eyes is so sincere that Tharja knows Robin means it when she says, “thank you for having me this morning. I’ve never enjoyed breakfast more than I have today.”

“You needn’t mention it, Robin,” says Tiki, though she casts a sly glance at Tharja before she speaks. “Besides, you’re practically one of the family; you will always be welcome here.”

Tharja almost wants to kill Tiki for that, because of all the other inappropriate things to be said, she would have preferred almost anything over the once-Voice’s chosen words.

 

When she catches the look on Robin’s face, however, she melts. She can’t be angry with Tiki for long, and especially not when Tiki’s words have very clearly pleased her Robin.

 

For a moment that feels like all it is, is entirely between Tharja and Robin, Tharja sees it. She sees past Robin’s bravado and cultivated façade. She sees past Robin’s grins and winks and carefully calculated breaths. She sees past the heavy walls surrounding Robin’s very heart; and, for the first time, she sees Robin Grimm the way Robin Grimm has always tried her very hardest not to be seen.

 

 

 

What Tharja sees is a girl who’s been a young woman for longer than she should have been.

 

What Tharja sees is a young woman who has trouble accepting the love she does not know she deserves.

 

What Tharja sees is a person who has never believed that there is a place in the world for each and every single person out there.

 

What Tharja sees in Robin’s eyes is a soul that knows its name, its past, its present, and its dreams for the future; but knows nothing about what it feels like to have a place in the world. What she sees is a heart without the warmth of others to help it along the harsh paths of life.

 

A heart that shouldn’t belong to Robin Grimm: that is what Tharja sees.

 

 

 

Almost without meaning to, Tharja takes Robin’s hand in her own. “Robin?”

As if it had never happened, the moment between them is gone. Tharja can hear her family’s breathing; the muted half-gasps of those who do not wish to disturb the scene before them. She almost wants to tell them to stop making this so _weird,_ but she cannot find her heart or voice, not for the moment.

Robin’s eyes alight upon the hand that holds hers and with inner peals of joy Tharja notes the rising of a blush on Robin’s fair skin. “Ah…I, uh, thank you again!” The white-haired woman rises jerkily, slipping her hand out of Tharja’s loosened grip.

“You can’t think that we’re just going to let you _walk_ all the way to the mall, Robin,” Anna says gently. “It’s a good half hour’s drive from here.” Tharja can see Robin struggling not to ask how Anna knows which mall she’s meeting Olivia at, but even Robin is no match for the way that Anna seems to know _everything—_ where the question of money might be concerned—without even trying.

“I could always take the bus.”

“Please, allow Tharja to take you,” Tiki cuts in, turning to Tharja. Tharja herself is staring, mouth set in a thin line as Tiki continues, “Use my car. Keys are on the rack.” As if sensing the building refusal Tharja’s brain has already begun to form into words, Tiki adds, feigning a bright, cheery tone, “You’re the only one not on clean-up duty today, Thar-Thar.”

 _Thar-Thar._ Alas, Tharja thinks, the dreaded pet name reveals itself, and Tharja almost doesn’t care for how beautiful Robin’s laughter sounds now. Almost.  “Sure,” she mumbles instead, because what else can she do? “Come on, Robin.” Ignoring the absolutely ridiculous faces her family have put on in an effort to embarrass her, Tharja turns out of her seat. Her legs feel strangely wobbly.

She’s three steps away from the key rack when she hears everybody bidding Robin one final, casual, very temporary farewell; then she’s one step away when she feels Robin’s presence almost directly behind her.

“Thank you for driving me, Tharja,” the younger woman says.

“I haven’t taken you anywhere yet.”

Robin looks at her strangely and Tharja wonders just why it is that she still finds it so very hard to look the younger woman in the eyes. Perhaps, she thinks, perhaps it is because of how much Robin’s familiar eyes make her heart long for a home she’ll never have again. Both the thought and the sentiment are illogical, really, but Tharja forgoes logic as she helps Robin out to the garage and into Tiki’s nicer-than-it-rightly-should-be, vintage, _very rare_ sports car.

It’s amusing, the way that Robin’s eyes light up as her hands run incredulously over well-kept, obviously high-quality leather. For a moment, Tharja is a little jealous. She doesn’t care too much about her own vehicle’s appearance, but Tiki treats her car like a newborn. Well, perhaps a toddler, since she mostly trusts the family to drive her car responsibly—except for Anna, of course.

Tharja has watched Anna beg Tiki—unsuccessfully—for the coveted keys time and time again, and each time to the same refrain of, “Not likely, Anna-Banana.” Tharja can’t think of what might have inspired Tiki to withhold her car from Anna alone. It doesn’t make sense, seeing as the redhead is probably the only one outside of Tiki herself who truly understands just how valuable the vehicle is, but whatever happened, it’s just mysterious enough to pique Tharja’s interest.

She pulls out of her distracting thoughts just fast enough to hear Robin say, “Much as I love just sitting at your side in this beautiful car, I wasn’t making up that Livvy wanted my help.”

“Right, sorry,” Tharja mutters, starting up the car with the same fear she always has whenever it’s Tiki’s keys in her hand. To her relief, the engine begins to purr smoothly, and Tharja wrestles herself into the proper headspace for driving such a well-kept, highly-coveted vehicle.

Robin seems to see that Tharja is nervous, because she holds her tongue even though Tharja can see her anxiety in her periphery vision. Of course, all things considered, this makes sense. It’s just the two of them alone now, and they’d left off on a rather awkward note. Then, of course, Tharja’s _blessed_ family had decided to make matters more awkward by involving Robin in their family breakfast, and then there had been that, that…Tharja doesn’t know what to call that moment _._

 

 

 

The drive to the mall, all thirty-three minutes of it, is silent.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

“I need to speak with you later today,” Robin says as she steps out of Tiki’s car. “There’s still so much I don’t understand…and I can’t help feeling like you’re hiding something from me.”

“Hiding something?”

Of course she’s hiding something. Who isn’t? What Tharja wants to know is why Robin has decided to be so open about her suspicions. Normally she would bide her time, would hold all her cards to her chest and reveal nothing of her intentions. Tharja is concerned. Is Robin alright?

Then again, Tharja’s memory isn’t yet so awful that she has forgotten their earlier conversation. Robin did mention being cruel to her, being dishonest in spite of wanting to tell Tharja nothing but the truth. She would be lying if she denied her curiosity at those statements. No, they really must speak at some point soon, and Tharja knows it.

Before Robin can press the issue, Tharja simply nods, pretending that she hadn’t just questioned Robin’s motives only a second earlier. “I think that would be for the best. How about you call me, or something? After you’ve finished shopping with Olivia?”

Robin nods carefully, clearly surprised that Tharja isn’t more difficult to convince. The sight of her unguarded eyes makes Tharja wonder precisely what it is between the pair of them. Barring that one afternoon in Tharja’s office and short hugs, or touches of the hand every now and again, they’ve had no physical contact.

It’s always there, the physical attraction, but that doesn’t seem to play much part in the younger woman’s attitude whenever they’re together. Most of the time Tharja is surprised, really, because Robin Grimm is very much a product of her era in most respects. It is decidedly strange how Robin, the epitome of this new Ylissean modernity, can sometimes feel so familiar to Tharja, who herself is a relic of a time long since past. She forgets of course, that she would be wise not to paint all modern Ylissean youth in such a light. Sweeping generalizations are rarely—if ever—accurate.

 

She’s beginning to forget her own age after all, so it’s to be expected that she’d forget simple lessons like that.

 

“I’ll call you, then. We won’t be done for a good while though, so please, if there’s anything you need to do, don’t let me keep you here.” Robin blinks once or twice, as if putting her shields back into place, and Tharja notes how the vulnerable eyes Robin wore only seconds before have now been replaced by the usual twinkling pair.

The once-sorceress has to suppress the urge to tell Robin not to look so…put-together. She has to stop herself from saying, in a voice that she isn’t sure Robin will find kind or patronizing, that she wishes Robin could feel more at home in her skin. It isn’t her place. Tharja hates to think that, but it’s true; when it comes to Robin as Robin is now, it isn’t her place to say what she feels.

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Robin calls her a little more than a full six hours later—not that Tharja’s just been driving around aimlessly during that entire period of time (in her own car, which she’d gone back home to swap for). Tharja drives her own, more-modest-though-still-nice, vehicle to the same place where she’d dropped Robin off earlier in the morning. She’s surprised to find the younger woman waiting patiently on the curb, a small bag in hand from what Tharja is almost positive is one of the three jewellery stores in this particular mall.

 “Did you have a good time?”

Robin nods as she buckles herself in, placing the bag between her feet in a deft, poorly concealed motion. It’s almost as if she wants Tharja to ask what it is, but the dark-haired woman is far too old to be jumping the gun like that. Far too old. In fact, Tharja isn’t even sure she knows _just_ how old she’s managed to become.

If Tiki is to be believed (which she is) then Tharja is actually just about eighteen hundred fifty-two or so, or something close enough to that. The thought is baffling.

Tharja feels strangely out of place all of a sudden, as her eyes dance over and around Robin and whatever the little bag in between the younger woman’s legs might hold. Gods above, she’s so damned _old_. The thought makes her feel more than a little guilty when her eyes land on the exposed skin of Robin’s hips, pale flesh peeking out frm between the hem of the younger woman's shirt and the top of her belt. _Cradle robber, cradle robber, cradle robber._

“Are you feeling alright?”

Tharja shakes her head free of the awful chanting of her consciousness and turns a small smile toward Robin. “Yes, fine…so…um.” Robin’s gaze is curious, but patient as she waits for Tharja to regain the ability to form words. “Where do you want to go? To uh…talk?”

It sounds strange and awkward, but Tharja hopes that Robin can tell how hard she’s trying to make the younger woman feel comfortable. The question of what Robin had meant earlier in the day, with her cryptic hints and linguistic run-arounds, has been plaguing Tharja for the last six hours, yes, but it has also made it painfully clear to her that Robin is still deciding on whether or not Tharja can be fully trusted.

“Oh,” Robin says, blinking back surprise, as if she’d expected a different question entirely. “There’s a park near your house that I actually really like visiting…would it be fine for us to go there?”

Tharja nods even though she isn’t sure she wants to, because that’s the park in which she had dumped a ton of sadness on Nah all those months ago. It’s also almost too close for comfort, too close to home, but then again, Tharja knows she has no right to use that as an internal argument. After all, had she or had she not tried to start a conversation about her conditional immortality while sitting on the porch swing only seven or eight feet away from the door to her family’s home?

“Tharja?”

With no small level of embarrassment Tharja realizes she has yet to actually start the car. She makes a hasty excuse and does just that, turning on the radio so that Robin is aware that she doesn’t want to start any semblance of a conversation during the drive. Due in part to her distractions, it takes almost an hour to get to the park in question, and another half hour is wasted in her search for a parking space.

If Robin is annoyed, she doesn’t show it. She just smiles as Tharja unlocks the passenger door and slides out of the car; there’s a brief second where her body brushes just-so against Tharja’s, and the older woman almost wants to die right then and there. The action is so smooth, so flawlessly executed, that Tharja has to wonder what Robin is playing at. Gone is the shy, quiet girl who had worried her lip from her seat across Tharja’s porch swing. Instead, it’s as if a simple day of shopping with Olivia has completely rejuvenated Robin; completely refilled her capacity for smooth charm and bullshit.

 

 

 

Tharja can’t help but smile at the thought; at the very least, Robin seems happier now than she had been earlier in the day.

 

 

 

She waits for Robin to make the first foray into conversation. It isn’t that she’s scared, not now that she knows that reincarnation is a definite possibility (the only possibility) in Robin’s mind. It’s just…after all these lonely years it’s become quite possible that Tharja isn’t ready for things to change. The paradox of longing for Robin versus craving stability exists, and it haunts Tharja now as she walks, not-quite-beside but not-quite-apart from the forty-eighth version of the woman she loved enough to trade her mortality for.

“I can’t see any way to do this delicately, so I’m just going to be as upfront as possible,” Robin begins. She swallows a breath quietly, then says, voice firm, but amiable, “While I was helping Olivia, I couldn’t help but run through our conversation this morning, and I have to conclude that my theory, no matter how crazy it might seem, has to be true. I’m a reincarnation of whomever it was who originally held these memories.”

“Well, technically yes, but _I’m_ actually the one holding the memories, so really, you only see them because they involve your past self.” Tharja pauses, because that wasn’t where she’d originally planned to take that sentence.

“ _Exactly_ how do you fit into this, Tharja? Tell me, please. I’ve been turning it over and over in my head and I can’t come up with anything.”

From the blush on the younger woman’s cheeks, Tharja knows that that is a lie. Robin has probably already figured out the reason. There are, after all, very few possibilities; and of those, Tharja is almost certain that Robin has already dismissed any theories wherein Tharja is a family member in the blood-relative sense. Still, she really _doesn’t_ want to be the one to say it. It’s a delicate matter to speak on, and Tharja isn’t sure that she’s the right person for the job even though, technically, she is the _only_ person for the job.

How can it be a job for anybody else, really, to stand across from the twenty-year old reincarnation of her wife and say, with a straight face, “Well, Robin, I was once the wife and lover of a version of you that is now forty-eight life cycles dead. Yes, by all rights I should be dead now too, but I was blessed by a divine being so that I could be reunited with my wife after she was taken away from me unfairly. I’m approaching two thousand years old now, but I’d really like the chance to share all of our accumulated memories with you; and also possibly get married and die together; or live together for the rest of eternity, whichever you'd prefer”?

 

Robin’s face is the perfect arrangement of amusement, surprise, and just a hint of frightened intrigue. “Wow. I mean, even though I figured it might have to be something like that, that’s…a lot to take in.”

Tharja bites down on her lip hard enough that she’s almost certain she’s broken skin, and it isn’t until Robin’s hand finds hers that she stops. _Way to go, Tharja_. She can’t believe it, but there it is; a perfect example of how she, Tharja, is one of the most unfortunate people in the universe at this current point in time.

The path they’ve meandered on to is almost completely bereft of others, of movement, of anything not concerning just the pair of them; something that Tharja can appreciate as she stumbles over her own thoughts in an attempt to make some small recovery of dignity. Robin appears at a loss for words, dumbfounded in a way Tharja has never seen on the face of any incarnation of her dead wife. It’s strange and unfamiliar, but mostly, it’s cute.

 

Tharja knows that she shouldn’t be so easily distracted, but the thought is persistent, and Robin really does look cute in the half-fading summer sun.

 

“Yeah, I suppose it is,” she finally manages. “For however little it may be worth though, I’m telling you the truth.

“I don’t doubt you.”

“Yeah,” Tharja says again, because she can’t seem to think of anything better to say. It takes a few seconds of silence for her to realize that there’s something she needs to ask. Something that’s been bothering her in spite of all of Robin’s charms, in spite of the mystery surrounding Robin as Tharja knows her now. “When you said you’d been cruel to me…what were you talking about?”

 

The change that comes over Robin is both swift and unsettling.

 

It’s as if the entirety of the young woman’s body tenses up at the mention of her cruelty; as if she’d forgotten that she herself had meant to unveil her regrettable actions to Tharja only earlier on in the day. Tharja half-expects Robin to glaze over the subject, but, as she has been throughout most of her time with this current era’s Robin, she is surprised by what actually comes out of Robin’s mouth. “Before I tell you, will you agree to do something?”

“What?”

Robin’s tone is pleading, but still firm. Still strong. “I think that after today, we shouldn’t speak to each other for a while.” When she turns, Robin’s eyes are sad, and Tharja doesn’t know why but she feels sick. “It’s not that I don’t lo—like spending time with you, Tharja, but…it’s my last year of school, and if everything you’ve said is true—and I feel like I _should_ believe you—then there’s quite a bit I want to try to work through on my own; and I have to think about my future as well. I have to come to terms with this without you. Before we move anywhere in whatever this _thing_ ,” Robin drops Tharja’s hand and gestures at nothing in particular, “between us is.”

“I agree,” Tharja says, because she knows that this is the best way to handle the situation. She cannot force Robin to accept her right now, and Robin’s tentative acceptance of the truth is more than she’d expected.

Robin seems to relax only slightly, though now she is walking at least an arm’s length apart from Tharja. “I have to apologize for that apology yesterday.”

“Apologize for that apolo—wait, what?”

“I knew exactly what was going on, Tharja. Do you think that I woke up this morning and thought that reincarnation was the only plausible reason for my dreams? I’ve been mulling this over for weeks now. Weeks.”

“What does that—

“Just…wait. Please.” Robins eyes plead so eloquently for her silence that Tharja nods and draws one finger across her lips slowly. They’ve stopped walking, and the sun is fading through the trees, but all that Tharja can see is the curve of Robin’s lips as the words tumble down. “I wanted to ask you about it for so long but I had no idea how to broach the topic. Then I saw your ring and I…I’m so sorry Tharja.”

Tharja swallows, hard. If she’s right, if this is going where she thinks it is...”You don’t mean…”

Robin’s eyes have sprung forth tears, but her voice is strangely cold, clinical when she speaks. “I thought I’d test out my theory. Of course I didn’t know for sure how you’d react, but when I saw your face after I made that apology I knew. I knew that I’d found out the truth, even though every fibre of my being wanted to deny it.”

Tharja backs away as if stung. “What you mean to tell me, is that you were acting that whole time? You pretended to…to be... _you pretended to be her_? To apologize to me _as her_?” It’s almost as if the world is imploding around her, and Tharja is ashamed to feel the anger that is unfurling itself within her chest. This is Robin, her Robin. In spite of all that might seem wrong with the situation, she is still the woman Tharja loves…

 

But then why does Tharja feel this way?

 

The cold, reflective tone of Robin’s voice doesn’t help to dissipate Tharja’s growing rage. “I did what I had to…I’m so sorry, Tharja, but we would have been at an impasse forever if I hadn’t made that first move.”

 

Tharja stops. Just stops. It’s as if she’s experiencing her first true death, right there in the park underneath the trees. Robin is right, of course, because her deception was really the catalyst for their entire conversation, but that doesn’t make the knowledge of what Robin has done sit any less poorly with her.

 

“It’s fine. I forgive you,” Tharja says, even though the words feel like lying. “Now…about what you were saying earlier, about not speaking to each other…”

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

They do not walk back to the park entrance together, and already Tharja feels the distance between herself and Robin grow.

 

It’s as if all of their progress in the last year has led up to nothing, nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow that took longer than it should have...I am so very sorry.  
> Uhh...so it's probably not as good as you were expecting, but it's there so...I hope you like it?
> 
> I'm currently working at a summer camp with little kids; eight hours a day, five days a week, for three more weeks, so I may not be able to get a new chapter up until then, but after that I'll hopefully be able to return to my old schedule, or even a more consistent one since I no longer have to go and educate myself.
> 
> Anyway, enough rambling. I would normally plug tumblr here but I don't have anything much going on so just uh, bye for now!


	22. Law of Inertia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja's support line pulls through yet again.

Her entire life is frozen in time; stuck in that moment in the park with the sun filtering perfectly through the trees to highlight the sorrow in Robin’s eyes. When Tharja lays her head upon the pillow at night she feels that last press of Robin’s fingertips on her cheeks; a touch so gentle that one would say they were lovers, yet so foreign on Tharja’s lonely skin that she cannot claim any intimacy from the feeling. When she struggles to enter the realm of sleep, eyes closed but concentrated on the flashing lights against her eyelids, she hears the soft whisper of Robin’s voice; the pain that she hadn’t imagined would be there. It is always followed by the cold cut of tempered steel; the determination in Robin’s tone as she’d confessed to her lies.

In her every waking moment Tharja sees the tiny bag in Robin’s hand, recalls how the younger woman hadn’t let it out of her sight once. She remembers the carefree laugh that had danced smoothly from Robin’s lips when she’d asked about the contents of the mysterious little package. What could that tiny bag have possibly held, and what could it have meant for them if Tharja hadn’t lost all control over her damned mouth? Tharja wonders at an answer; waits for it to come to her while she sits and stares at nothing.

 

 

While she thinks of Robin as she aches from her very soul and _wants_.

 

 

Summer seems to move so quickly that it is almost spirited away in the blink of an eye, but Tharja feels herself stuck at a standstill. The first hints of autumn—breezes that are heavier than gentle summer winds—ring bitterly against her cheeks as she walks the streets of her familiar neighbourhood alone. Only months ago, though it feels as if it has been years upon years, this was an activity meant to share with somebody else—usually Robin. They’d ventured down paths Tharja had known before the formal introduction of pavement, found spaces that she hadn’t known were there. Together they’d realized just how close their two neighbourhoods were; a path that was already easy enough, but made only more so by a discovered shortcut.

Passing by the entrance to said shortcut serves to cause Tharja some discomfort, but she would be going out of her way just to avoid it. All things considered, she thinks that she could afford to be less ridiculous about this whole situation, and changing routes now would definitely be ridiculous. Tharja walks past the entry, a fairly normal looking tree-lined lane, and feels slightly better, if not about how much she misses Robin, than at least about herself.

Of course, the feeling doesn’t last long, and she finds that though her body continues to move, her mind is now following the trees to where they come out in the centre of a certain young woman’s neighbourhood. Robin’s closeness is more curse than blessing now; it gnaws at her like sharpened, hungry agony applying itself to a wound that has been rent asunder just before the point of healing over and over again; a wound that festers, with no soothing salve available to the sufferer. Tharja hates herself for how inconsolable she has become.

 

Try though she might, she cannot stop herself from stewing in the melodrama of her entire existence.

 

***

 

In the penultimate week before the end of summer’s freedom Nah tries, Nowi tries, Tiki tries—even Anna tries, sincerity in every non-existent line around her eyes—but nobody can summon Tharja back into the woman she was before all this; before the deception, before the (worst possible) presentation of the unlikely truth; before the conversations that had taken Tharja’s world and torn it apart at its already fragile seams. In turn, partially because she does notice their efforts even in her sorry state, Tharja tries to do better by her family. During the last week of their vacation she pulls herself from her bed almost through sheer force of will alone; and offers each of her family members the gift of her time, her undivided attention.

 

 

Nah is the simplest, the least complicated in her desire for Tharja’s time. She requests one day—not even one full day—just a few hours strung together to watch a show that Nah has—surprisingly—yet to see. Tharja is quick to agree anyway; animation is as good a distraction as any at this point. Nah’s taste is usually impeccable by anyone’s account, as if she knows just what to choose, and it appears to be abundantly clear—as it is to them all— that Tharja is in need of emotional release. For her part, Tharja knows that her catharsis approaches as soon as Nah’s finger has placed the disc upon the player.

 

Tharja is intrigued by the end of the pilot and positively hooked by the second episode.

 

Needless to say, Nah’s choice does not disappoint, and Tharja allows herself the entire day to sit with her de facto niece, to cry over untimely, unfair deaths and love kindled in hearts not truly beating. The story—as well as the stories within its tapestry—is beautiful: an examination of loss and redemption, of seeking the peace of oblivion; a story of what it is to be human, what it is to find absolution. The heaviness in her heart relieves itself just a little as she cries, as she manages to project her own distress onto the fictional characters playing out their scenes on the screen.

She thanks Nah wholeheartedly when the final credits have rolled, when that sad, sweet song has played itself out for the last time, and the only response Nah sees fit to give is to hug Tharja close, to nuzzle into Tharja’s stomach as if she were a child of much, much younger age. Tharja allows the contact, strokes Nah’s hair, and the second day ends with the first peaceful sleep Tharja has had since the final conversation at the park.

 

***

 

Nowi surprises her, as Nowi is wont to do. When Tharja knocks upon the other woman’s door, she is greeted by the sight of her once much shorter friend standing with her hands behind her back and a large smile on her face. It is strange, that smile, strange because it has not changed although the rest of Nowi certainly has. Though she’d never say it to the manakete’s face, Tharja almost misses the way Nowi had been before: smaller than even Nah, who is still not too tall, and rounded nowhere else but in her cheeks.

“What are you holding behind your back?”

“Oh, just something I thought you might like!”

Tharja is asked to close her eyes, and she decides not to protest the request because though she does not feel up for guessing games, Nowi is trying her very best. To deny the other woman even this small triumph would be unfair. Instead she allows Nowi to cuddle up close as they sit together atop Nowi’s bed. Before her eyes close, she sees something like a small sack; a pouch. It seems to shine dimly under the lights, but Nowi clicks her tongue with joking impatience, and Tharja shuts her eyes completely.

The first thing she thinks when the pouch is put into her hands is that she has no idea what this fabric could possibly be. It is fibrous, but not overmuch, soft, but dry, puzzling overall. When she is allowed to open her eyes, Tharja does not bother to hide the gasp of surprise that escapes her. Pulling back on the drawstring carefully, as if it might break, she places one hand inside, afraid of what she might (or might not) find.

“They’re all in there, I think,” Nowi says just as Tharja’s fingers come into contact with something small and vaguely rounded. “Yeah that’s right…I think I put them all back. All twenty-four.” Twenty-four…what? Tharja lowers her hand just a little, gently grasping the first thing she can; it rolls under her touch and she feels a crevice, possibly etchings on the otherwise smooth surface of whatever it...could it be?

Tharja does not speak, not just yet, instead concentrating on pulling her hand free of the pouch. She is afraid to look, and she knows that Nowi can feel the quivering of her body as she rolls her hand over. When her palm is laid flat Tharja sees a small, rounded piece of black onyx, and she can feel spontaneous tears fighting to be freed into the open air through her eyes. She turns to Nowi, astonishment written all over her face. “How…where…what did you do to find these?”

Nowi scratches the back of her neck as she shrugs and laughs, just slightly nervously; a trait that seems to be shared amongst all of them in this house, though the origin of the act remains unknown. “To be honest, I kept them. From the last time we did that whole ‘clutter purge’ thing.”

Their last round of “de-cluttering” (as Anna put it) had been more than two hundred years ago. and though Tharja had never wanted to part with the rune stones, she’d assumed them to be lost amongst everything else. “After all this time?”

“They reminded me of how we became friends,” Nowi says, her smile altogether too adult, too distinctly mature to belong on her face. “So when I realized what I’d found, I kept them. By then, you’d already renounced the old ways.”

“Why give them to me now? I don’t mind that you’ve had them all these years,” Tharja says, because though the stones are precious, she truly does not mind.

“I was actually afraid I’d lost them, but I figured you might be looking for something familiar…all things considered,” Nowi says, deftly dodging the subject in a way she wouldn’t have been able to do all those many, many centuries ago. “I know that you don’t like to practice the old ways anymore, and I know that magic no longer works the way it once did, but still...these are yours.”

Tharja smiles, still unable to come up with exactly how much Nowi’s gift means to her. She moves away slightly to allow Nowi’s violet eyes to watch as she upends the rune stones upon the bed sheets beneath them. All twenty-four stones are there when she counts them, all looking just as well as they had on the day she decided she no longer had reason to hold on to them. Tharja runs a hand over the precious stones, careful not to shut Nowi out as she reminisces.

“This set…do you know why these were important to me?”

“Why?” Nowi asks, and there’s a glimmer of the curious woman-child she’d been in the earliest days of their acquaintance.

“I helped my mother to make this set when I was a little girl,” Tharja explains, caressing a rune with the tip of her finger. “I remember little from my childhood now,” she says, “painfully little. But I do remember the way that Mother had looked as we scoured the desert for deposits of onyx. My father stayed at home while we searched; Mother said it was so that our home’s wards would be kept active, but truly, it was because she wanted time alone with me.” She pauses. “As her only child, I was taught that I should feel honoured to respect her wish for time with me, but when I was young, I was…wary of the idea.”

“You respected your mother, didn’t you?”

Tharja knows that the topic is disrespectful in a sense, insensitive to Nowi, whose parents have been gone much, much longer than Tharja can even begin to fathom. Still, the way Nowi waits for an answer goads her on. “I did yes, but that was not all. When it came to my mother, I felt respect, and fear, and sometimes hatred, but always a small, insistent kernel of love. It was that last she did not want me to feel, as it supposedly tempered my magic poorly; turned a weapon into a farce. Still, she was my mother. She taught me everything I know…knew about the old arts, and many other things besides.”

 

That is more than any of her children would have been able to say for her.

 

She feels the question that builds itself on Nowi’s lips, and when she turns Tharja watches the curiosity in Nowi’s eyes change track. Another sign of the manakete’s undeniable maturity. “You don’t want to forget her, but you’re beginning to,” Nowi says, and it is a statement of fact, not a simple question. “Do you want to talk about anything, Tharja? I don’t mean to offend, but human minds weren’t meant to last as long as yours has.”

“You’re right,” she says, and the misery of her life comes raining down hard before Nowi’s arm slings itself casually over her shoulder.

“Now, come on, don’t be that way! I just meant that if you wanted to keep your memories sharp, you can talk to me. To any of us, really, but specifically me, for now.”

She doesn’t say anything for a while, simply strokes her mother’s rune stones and remembers what it had been like to watch the rituals involved in their making, the way Mother’s hand had felt on her hair when she’d found the perfect piece of onyx. Nowi gets up, and for a second Tharja feels guilty that she’s made the other woman so uncomfortable that she feels she needs to leave her own room. When Tharja looks up, however, Nowi is standing right in front of her, smiling more sweetly than she can remember her doing in recent years. It’s as if she sees Nowi as she once was; a cherub-cheeked child with a quirky smile and flyaway hairs sticking up every-which-way. She smiles in return.

 

For the next two days, hers and Nowi’s voices can be heard trading memories softly in the earliest hours of morning, and though Tharja stumbles in her recollections she is always surprised at what detail Nowi can provide.

 

***

 

It’s different with Tiki, with whom Tharja has technically spent the most time at this point. After the last early morning discussion with Nowi, Tharja is told to pack a few things in a duffle bag—“just a couple outfit changes”. She doesn’t even think twice before doing it.

Hers and Tiki’s relationship has always been a strange one, punctuated by a certain level of understanding that neither of them remembers having to work hard on to attain. That’s part of the reason why she doesn’t say anything when Tiki wakes her from a fitful, restless sleep only to enjoy a rushed family breakfast before being half-guided, half-carried into Tiki’s car.

As it turns out, she’s being taken on a road trip. According to Tiki, it’s important and meant to be just the two of them, and though Tharja is mostly full and tired and in no mood for talking, that actually sounds like it wouldn’t be bad. No, it wouldn’t be bad at all. Tharja settles into her seat as the road opens up before them; and though her eyes are half-closed and bleary from the gravel and the sand she can still see the way Tiki’s concerned gaze flicks over to her side of the car at every free moment.

 

The first time they stop, Tharja is surprised to learn that she had fallen asleep. She only knows because Tiki’s hand is warm on her shoulder and Tiki’s hair is brushing her face gently when her eyes crack open.

“How long have I been sleeping for?”

“Only about five hours.” A quick glance at the clock tells her that they’ve been driving for closer to seven.

“Where are we?” Logically she knows that, with that kind of time and the way Tiki normally drives, they’re closer to Plegia than home. Still, something holds her back, and so she repeats her question first instead of looking around for herself.

“Look,” Tiki says, and she moves away from Tharja, leaving her with an unobstructed view of the house that is directly in front of them. “Would you like to get out and look around?”

“Please.”

 

These sands have shifted too many times to be familiar, and this view is not the same that she had once spent many a morning watching, but the house that stands upon the solitary hill is styled just as it once had been. “It isn’t precise, of course, and this was as geographically precise as I could manage, but…I think it’s a fairly faithful recreation, don’t you?”

She remembers this place, she thinks as her eyes scan over a house she has not seen in years. “And we are still in Ylisse?”

“Yes…only about two hours’ drive from the Plegian border.” Tiki sounds as serene as she usually does, and Tharja is glad that her companion’s spirit seems to be at odds with the turmoil of her own.

Before Robin had been taken away, before they’d ever known that they would be blessed with children, they had lived together in a house just like this one. A home they had shared in the two years of peace following Emmeryn’s death, before the entirety of the world had been plunged into chaos. Tiki has done a remarkable job with the recreation of everything Tharja had once held dear. By instinct alone, she knows that this is the right place; close enough to Ylisstol if one’s mount had wings, but close enough to the Plegian border to share some of the sands of her homeland.

 

Had things been different, she and Robin might have been able to raise Little Morgan and Little Noire here, in this house, or rather, in the original version of this house. Together.

 

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Tharja,” Tiki murmurs. “I thought it would be good for you though, to see this place again.”

She isn’t sure how Tiki can tell that she’s begun to cry, but Tharja doesn’t question that. Instead, she asks, “Why?”

Tiki spins her around slowly, carefully, though not with the misleading gentleness of a lover. Tiki’s grasp on her hand is more along the lines of the comforting hold of a cherished friend. “You are a person who clings to tangible objects, Tharja, in spite of how much you know of that which we cannot see. This house…began as but an attempt to imitate the one in which you once spent some of the happiest days of your life; but I hope that in my having it built, it will now serve another purpose.”

Tharja thinks that this is already more than enough. She doesn’t want to know about the money that Tiki must have put into this project, the careful care with which she had overseen construction of a building that others would see no value in aside from the remote, yet idyllic location. Looking back, Tharja sees that this explains many of Tiki’s unexplained weekends out of town, so to speak, but she cannot imagine why any of this has come about.

“What purpose? You have already given me a gift, Tiki.” She pauses, and then amends her statement. "You have already given me so many gifts."

“The number does not matter,” says the once-Voice of Naga, “as I have never given you anything you could not give yourself...but now? Now I'll give you one of the best gifts of all. Tharja, this house, and all the land and legal rights that come with it, is yours now. We all agreed it would be better for you to have somewhere private, for when you need to be away. For when you want to be alone with your thoughts.”

Tharja feels ashamed of herself; have they guessed? Have the other members of her household realized that she sometimes feels as if she is adrift, alone in a world that should never have known of her existence save for passing mentions in faded legends? As she so often tells herself, manaketes (and presumably Anna) were born knowing their lot in life, born knowing that they would love and leave behind over and over and over again, but Tharja is only mortal. Though she loves her family so very dearly, sometimes it is difficult to be reminded of how much she does not belong.

 

As if reading the mess of emotions on her face Tiki pulls her in closely, whispering soft words of comfort that soothe Tharja more than she expected them to.

 

She spends a full three days with Tiki, allowing the other woman to take them to places they’d visited once before. Tharja tries to focus on her friend, on the fancy car they spend more time in than out of, and in spite of the modern trappings of the age it all feels as it had back when they had been an unlikely pair coming down from Tiki’s home atop the Mila Tree. Back in those uncertain days, when Tharja had still believed that all of this would be over soon, that reuniting with Robin would be simple and not the leviathan of a feat that it has proven itself to be.

 

***

 

When they return, she helps Anna for an entire day, as is only fair. It begins from the quietest hours of morning and extends into those same hours of night. She accompanies the other woman on a journey to the Outrealm Portal, lingering at the swirling of the gate while the redhead disappears to lands of which Tharja does not dare to dream. Anna makes frequent returns, loading her pick-up truck with sacks upon sacks of _things._ Throughout the day, Anna is sure to always bring a small gift in addition to the valuables that keep their family firmly in the highest tax bracket; the first time, it is a simple gathering of familiar herbs. Their scent breathes a short flame of life into the old magic in Tharja’s bones, and she presses them into her clothes and her skin and tries to relish the feeling while she can. The third time—or is it the fourth?—it is a worn tome that passes from Anna’s hands to Tharja’s own; and though it is beyond use and Tharja has all but lost her skill, she does not fail to hold the treasured gift tightly to her chest; to clench shut her eyes as she whispers familiar words in familiar patterns.

 

She tells Anna not to bother with another gift; nothing will be better for her than this.

 

Each time her eyes close she imagines that she is home, that the relentless passage of piled centuries has all been nothing but a bizarre, protracted dream. She throws herself into each half-forgotten syllable and prays that she will open her eyes to see her children; to see the young adults from the future holding their younger selves in nurtured, nurturing arms. She will wait for them to put the children upon the ground before taking them both into her arms and whispering words of praise, words of pride.

When she has finished, when her eldest pair are off on their day’s adventures, then she will bend down to kiss the young ones, who will not shy away from their mother. They will grasp at the fabric of her robes with the enthusiasm only loving children can summon, will not be alarmed at the skin that the raiment does not cover, and will return her embrace with the sweet kisses of youth. And Robin will be there, wearing her sweetest smile, and she too will come to kiss the little ones, will then place her love upon Tharja’s own lips. Then the world will move past them as they spend their lives together; a family, unbroken, a chain connecting Tharja and Robin and the blessings of life that Naga had deemed fit to bestow upon them.

  

 

 

When her eyes open to reacquaint themselves with the world of the now, Tharja knows, as she always does, that she has spent her time on a wasted wish. This is fine, she thinks. After all, at the rate she’s going, Tharja has nothing left for her but time.

 

***

 

As the new semester beckons Tharja feels the forces of the world pushing at her, disrupting her stasis, and for once she does not feel that she must fight the motion. Instead, she merely allows herself to be swept away in the flow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. That was...something. Next update will be in a week, or at least it really, really should be. I know that I say this every single time, but we are getting so very, very close to the end. Only a few more weeks of burning the midnight oil and AYL should be brought to a conclusion of sorts!
> 
> If you want to talk about this or anything else, feel free to send me a message or ask [ right over here](http://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com). I haven't had the chance to be active on Tumblr lately, but occasionally I do things like rant or post nerdy things. So there's that.
> 
> Until next week, beautiful people!


	23. About-Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tharja feels her concentration slipping, and hates it.

Even though she should be fine by now, she still feels somewhat off-balance.

 

Tharja sulks about the house as the weight of the new semester announces itself, unsurprised when she fails to find Robin’s name on any of her four class rosters. At the very least, she is promised a few familiar faces. She sends up a silent prayer to Naga in thanks for the Shepherds’ collective maturity— _does she even hear me anymore?_

Cordelia is in three of her courses—two of which cross-list into the younger woman’s political science major. Chrom and Gaius are in those two courses as well—Chrom because of his similar area of study and Gaius because of Chrom. Maribelle and Olivia are in the third of Tharja’s classes in which Cordelia makes an appearance, and she is pleasantly surprised. Neither of them needs an upper-level history course and secretly she hopes it is because they do truly enjoy being around her.

That silent admission is surprising, but not unwelcome.

Henry’s name, sadly, is not present on any of her attendance sheets, but Tharja is aware that that could change in the winter term—for once, she is happy to be teaching half-year courses. Overall everything should be fine. Everything is spaced out nicely, and the courses, while upper-year, are not _too_ strenuous.

She doesn’t understand why she’s not more bothered by the lack of Robin in her life at the moment. Things have been strange. _It’s because you still have the friends you share_. Tharja laughs to herself, but it is devoid of humour. Though she finds that she does care for the Shepherds—worries about them, even, from the thinly-stretched Cordelia to the mysteriously troubled Henry—she wonders if their caring for her has been tempered by Robin’s absence from her side.

She certainly wouldn’t blame them for not wishing to upset their friend; sometimes Robin seems to be the only thing keeping their group together in a coherent manner.

Regardless, the semester promises to be bright in spite of the dark spots that cloud Tharja’s vision. It promises goodness, but still, Tharja finds the spectre of her hurt and her own pathetic sense of failure leeching off of her at every turn. She tries to smile, but she cannot, not even ironically, not in the hallways of the university or in the classrooms in which she finds herself teaching.

It is rare for her to smile even at home, and though her entire family is almost surely sick to death of her by now—sick of her dry ingratitude, of her constant melancholy words and her difficult, often morose outlook—she loves them for trying. Sensing the beginnings of defeat crawling over those she loves so dearly, Tharja attempts to show them that she’s still there in spite of it all. That somehow, in her own way, she still does care enough to make an effort for their sakes, as they are always, always, always doing for her.

 

She does love them, after all, and sometimes it bothers her that they love her so much because she has no idea what she has done to deserve them.

 

If memory serves, she’s done absolutely nothing to deserve them.

 

If she were a sensible woman, she would know that she should love them _more,_ far more than she does now—and that is already considerable. She knows that were she a more sensible woman, she would cherish them above even Robin. They deserve as much and more from her; deserve nothing but good in exchange for their patience, for their honesty, for their loyalty, for their love in its pure, unconditional form. Tharja knows how fortunate she is in spite of how often she curses her own existence, and the guilt in such sobering thoughts leads her to withdraw into herself some nights, to extend warm hands and small smiles to those she loves on others. Throughout it all, her family remains steadfast, unwavering in their commitment to her struggles, to a tortured life in which they never had to play a part had they not wished to.

 

She doesn’t have the heart to say that; to allow for the possibility of them arguing with her or worse, agreeing, so instead she just buckles down and tries her best to smile, at least in their presence.

 

***

 

She doesn’t know quite what sets off the beginning of a particularly foul mood, but it is something small and inconsequential that begins the nasty feeling. Tharja can’t even pinpoint when it begins, the only thing alerting her to the change being the pang of something festering like an infection in the back of her mind.  Considering how volatile her mood has been over the last few years, it could have been anything (though it’s “decades”, really. “Years” is most applicable only when one considers Robin’s re-entry into her life).

Tharja searches for the catalyst in an effort to centre herself, to focus on the problem and then dismiss it; to end the foul mood’s reign before it truly has a chance to get under her skin. What could it have been? A student accidentally bumping her arm as they passed? A lewd comment muttered not-lowly-enough under immature, salted breath? A glimpse of white hair, half-up and half-down, fluttering just out of view as she turned the halls?

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter at all.

It doesn’t matter at all what starts it because her mood is already ruined and figuring out the cause won’t help her anymore. She’s too far gone, and Tharja knows herself well enough to know that further searching is pointless.

In class she is snappish and short-tempered, and she feels embarrassed in a detached way as she forces herself to stare at the wall behind Gaius’s head. After his first few waves and smiles are ignored, he seems to understand that she isn’t quite looking at him, and she watches him lean forwards slightly to prod his boyfriend’s back with the dull end of a pencil. Chrom shoots Gaius a look, and after a second of overly exaggerated, silent words exchanged, Tharja feels the weight of Chrom’s blue eyes on her. She knows she shouldn’t really care, but she makes sure to catch his gaze, even if only for a moment.

 

The concern she sees there is so similar to the way the Exalt had once looked upon his Shepherds that she almost wants to retch at the nostalgia building in the pit of her stomach.

 

As she lectures she prays fervently that nobody else has noticed the cold edge to her tone, or the way her eyes sometimes dart about the room as if to show off just how much she doesn’t wish to be here right now. Thankfully, if anybody notices they don’t bother to ask—perhaps they don’t care enough to ask—and aside from the Shepherds in her class nobody so much as looks at her strangely on their way out the door.

“Have a good evening, Tharja…see you tomorrow,” says Cordelia as she trails behind the others, and Tharja hates that the younger woman is so damned polite. So damned professional, with just the right amount of personal concern dripping off the edge of her words. So damned _perfect_.

 

Then she realizes that this isn’t Cordelia’s fault, not a single bit of it, and she feels badly for being so snide even if only in her own head.

 

“Yes, thank you. Same to you, Cordelia,” she manages to say before the redhead is completely out of hearing range. She thinks that she might have gotten a small smile for her efforts, but honestly she’s too consumed with thoughts of just going home and getting to eat something that hasn’t come out of a plastic container. Maybe her mood will clear after a meal and a night’s rest.

 

At least, she hopes that that’s the case.

 

***

 

For some reason, she’s even more agitated the next morning.

It doesn’t help that today is Wednesday, the day when Maribelle, Olivia, and Cordelia all sit front and centre in the small, suffocating lecture hall she’d been allocated. Wednesdays are the worst. She’s constantly reminded of how things used to be, but she knows, somehow, that they never will be. The Shepherds are all aiming for graduation this year, even Gaius, and these are among the last chances she’ll ever have of seeing them all together like this.

 

Something digs its persistent claws into the back of her head and taunts her with the knowledge that they won’t want to spend time with her as a person—and not just the one professor their friend has a crush on—once they’ve gone off into the world.

 

The thought is annoying and impossible to dispel, and so she carries it all throughout the class. Tharja is glad that she’d ended up with four courses spread out over four days a week, as it makes each class more bearable. _Only three hours a day. Only three hours today._ The words become a mantra in her head and she tries her best to make it look as if she’s _not_ avoiding the front-centre row. She’s pretty sure she fails, but the three young women do not press it.

 

They still make it a point to wish her a pleasant evening with small, approachable smiles.

 

The guilt hits her then, as she stands there alone in a lecture hall too small for her class’s size, and it builds upon other little things that stick to her throughout the rest of the week until she’s absolutely jittery and inconsolable by the time Thursday evening rolls around and she’s officially done with teaching for the week. She can see the questions in Anna’s eyes, the concern in Nah’s, but she tries her best to act as if she’s alright even though she feels like she’s veering about in space alone. Directionless.

Tharja scorns herself for her behaviour as she paces about the house the next day, irritable and yet strangely needy for company.

Tiki, Nowi, and Anna all teach classes on Fridays, while Nah uses that time to make sure that the people she’s appointed to care for the museum during her absence are not _completely_ incompetent. Tharja knows that of course, knows that they’d all sat down to discuss their schedules, but it’s so dreadful to be home alone and she’s just so on edge. She briefly entertains the thought of taking a walk outside, but the heavy patter of autumn rain against the house’s roof does its part to dissuade her from that course of action.

She realizes that she hasn’t properly been alone, well and _truly_ alone, in so very long a while, and it shows. Tharja is guilty then, lying on the couch as if its plush cushions are a match for the comfort of her own bed. Guilty because she knows that she hasn’t been alone _on purpose_ , because her family loves her too much to let her do to herself what she would surely do were they not around.

Hell, she’s doing it right now.

Beating herself down. Overanalyzing every mistake she’s thought herself to make. Feeling sorry for herself and wondering if things are ever going to change. Naga above, she’s become so pathetic without her realizing it.

And yet perhaps she _has_ realized it already, has inspected herself and come up to find that she’s been this way for a while…and perhaps she’s realized it and not done anything, made some excuse, or worse. Allowed her family to solve her problems for her, instead of facing them down on her own. She’s certainly done that too much in the last millennia and then some.

Tharja knows she is spoiled, knows it with every fibre of her being, but she cannot bring herself to ask them why. Anna would laugh and dodge the question. Nowi and Nah would grow sad, would wonder what they might have done for her to question the already firmly proven idea that whatever they do for her, they do because they love her.

And Tiki…Gods, Tiki would be so _hurt_. They’d started from nothing, just the barest minimum required to call themselves acquaintances, and somehow, some way, they’d been able to turn that tiny, almost negligible connection into a bond so strong that not even Robin would have thought it possible.

 

The original Robin, Tharja has to forcefully remind herself. Today’s Robin has clearly been raised to believe that anything is possible, so the coming together of two individuals with very little in common would be commonplace in her mind. Robin would have just said it was meant to happen.

 

There it is again. Tharja tells herself to stop pouting, even though she knows there’s nobody around right now to see it and become upset. Robin’s name just does that to her. Thinking about Robin in any capacity does that to her. It’s as if their last conversation in the park never truly left her mind, and Tharja suspects that it never will. There was just something so unfair about it all.

She’d known her wife inside and out, had known that Robin would never stoop to deception unless she were sure it was the only option, and yet this Robin, this young woman that Tharja has found herself falling desperately in love with all over again…she’s cruel. Or at least she can be, in a way that Tharja’s wife had never been.

To think that she had been so easily led, so shaken by Robin’s performance…Tharja knows that she should have been well and truly past all of this by now, but the idea is just so hurtful that she finds herself returning to it over and over and over. Even though she’d told Tiki and Anna and Nowi and Nah that she would try to let it go. Tharja sits up slowly, resisting the urge to just toss her body back against the throw pillows.

She knows that she is upset partially because she had thought this Robin above such things; she’d thought it impossible that the young woman with the sunny laugh and the tricky little smile could do something so heartless. Tharja knows it is wrong to make assumptions, but she’d honestly thought Robin would care enough not to take the chance; the chance that if she were right, she would be breaking off a piece of Tharja’s heart and spitting on it by pretending to be a woman she is not.

Because Robin Grimm is not the same woman who’d defeated Grima and left behind her wife, daughter, and son to save them all, and she never will be. And it isn’t her fault, but that’s just how it is, and Tharja knows that Naga’s gift to her has been as much a test of her love as it has been a reward for it. To love her Robin had been easy, but to love the Robins she has seen through the passage of time, to reconcile herself with every new face, hairstyle, body, and mind, has been harrowing. It has been difficult, sometimes almost impossible, but Tharja feels better about Robin Grimm than she has about any of the others who followed the first.

 

And that is why she feels as if Robin’s small betrayal is tearing her to pieces.

 

Tharja forces herself to stop thinking on the matter. She draws in breaths she’d been holding back, allowing her lungs access to as much air as they can hope to have. It would not do to carry on this way, and she knows it.

If not for her sake, than for her family’s, she _will_ pull herself out of the mess she’s in.

And she’ll do it on her own, not because she doesn’t want them to help, but because it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to fix a problem that’s almost entirely personal.

The first thing that she realizes must change is her attitude, and though it is easier said than done she knows that it must be done. Tharja knows that she will never possess Tiki’s cool, yet charming maturity; nor will she ever come close to Anna’s open, outgoing, cheeky mystery. She can never hope to strike so fine a balance between child and adult as Nowi, or as Nah, but that is fine. Tharja knows that none of those patterns of behaviour, none of those outlooks on life would suit her. She knows that it would be best to be herself.

Though perhaps a less brooding, generally menacing and depressed version of herself.

It cannot entirely be Naga’s blessing that is to blame for her feeling of displacement. Adjustment had not been easy, not even for the other members of her family; all of whom were born to live forever. Knowing that, she feels closer to them, and she rises from the couch slowly, trying her best not to sink back down in both thought and body.

 

Everybody will be home by one in the afternoon at the latest.

 

The least she could do is start on preparing lunch.

 

***

 

Tharja knows how tiring it is, living so long, but she can’t imagine what Nowi, Tiki, or Anna must go through every few hundred years that gets added to their existence—their ages far outstrip her own. And yet, somehow, they stay so very well-focused on everything, even though adjustments, as she’s already had to remind herself, are not always so easy to make. Without having to ask, Tharja knows that she is the worst of them in keeping herself centred and on-task; even Nah’s focus is so much more impressive.

 

She doesn’t know what’s come over her, but the need to be proactive, to take charge, seems to take over her entire body.

 

For the entirety of the weekend Tharja does her best to control her poor mood, and is rewarded for her efforts with the pleased surprise radiating off of her family in waves. It’s a little more difficult during the school week, but somehow she manages, and she knows without looking that her family is watching, wondering what it is that’s inspired her to be so drastically different.

She doesn’t bother to tell them just yet, lest she build up their hopes for nothing. Tharja isn’t sure how far she’ll be able to take this behaviour. Instead of worrying, she makes an effort to sit and talk with them when they are all together; to watch movies and play the odd board game; to go for walks and help to rake the leaves as they begin to fall. She knows that every time she does something even mildly unexpected, they all look at each other, eyebrows raised to ask, as subtly and as silently as they can, _why_?

She doesn’t tell them that it’s because she’s seen the way that Anna’s smile falls just slightly after yet another night consoling Tharja, or guiding her through her next course of action. She doesn’t tell them that it’s because she’s tired of hearing Nah and Nowi crying at night. Tharja isn’t so dense that she doesn’t pay attention to the muffled, hidden whispers, the unanswered refrains of, “Why won’t she let us help her?” and “Why doesn’t she want us to be there for her?” repeating themselves over and over again just on the other side of the wall. She doesn’t tell them that it’s because she knows how hard it is for Tiki to worry about her, Tiki who empathizes and wants to help every way she can, but ultimately has to act as de facto head of the family because she’s the only one mature enough, the only one _stable_ enough to do it.

She doesn’t tell them it’s because she’s _sick_ of herself, disgusted with how awful of a family member she’s been, just taking and taking and taking and barely giving back.

It’s almost reminiscent of the time she’d tried to act more “normal” to impress Robin… except vastly different. While she’d done _that_ almost entirely for Robin, hating every second of it except for the fact that it might have increased her chances to attract the woman she loved, _this_ is not only for the benefit of the people with whom she lives. Of course, that’s part of it, but Tharja’s new attitude also includes not kidding herself when she can help it. As much as this is for the people she’s come to love more than she ever did her own flesh and blood—and here she feels a pang of regret for what could have been—this is also very, very personal.

 

It’s as if she’d forgotten how to be alive from that day in the park; like as if hearing Robin confess that awful truth had put her in stasis and left her there, when really, it hadn’t done anything other than _hurt_.

 

Doing her best to move past that, she continues to try to acclimatize herself to this new way of living, taking every day on with more energy than she’s had for the last century, at least. It’s entirely possible that she’s working herself too hard, but Tharja doesn’t care. It seems to be worth it so far.

Her students notice the change, and in turn seem to become more invested in her classes. Stories about “Doctor Noirgan’s transformation” echo throughout the halls, and with some amusement she notices how the Shepherds seem to always be there, quietly making sure that the other students never stray too far into the realm of inappropriate behaviour. Tharja doesn’t know if she should show them how much she appreciates their efforts, but something stops her every time. She wonders if Robin could possibly be behind it, quietly ensuring her comfort from the sidelines, but it doesn’t really matter.

 

Just like that, the second half of September practically evaporates into October, and then it is early November and still Tharja shows no signs of stopping.

 

She falls into her new patterns so well that one Saturday morning Tiki pulls her aside, concern in her eyes. “Tharja, we just…have noticed a change in you for the last few months. Is everything alright?”

“I’m well, Tiki,” she says, and she’s surprised to feel a genuine smile on her lips. Tiki’s own expression shows that she feels the same.

“Has anything…happened?”

Tharja knows that Tiki means to ask if anything has happened concerning _Robin_ , but in truth she’s barely seen or heard of the younger woman in weeks, _weeks_ , and when her thoughts do turn to Robin, they are not destructive and upsetting so much as hopeful. At the very least, those thoughts are more fond than not.

“Nothing’s happened, Tiki,” she says, placing a hand on Tiki’s arm. “I’m fine. I just...want to stop being such a burden to all of you. You’re my family…and I love you all.” The words are so forthcoming that Tharja is almost shocked with herself. She doesn’t feel like herself at all, even though she knows her voice is still the same dry monotone; perhaps it didn’t sound sincere due to that, but Tharja is still somewhat glad she’s said it. It’s a rare thing, her saying she loves them, and they deserve much better from her.

 

Because Tharja knows that her concentration—on her job, on her family, on her life outside of Robin—has been slipping as of late, and it bothers her, and she wants—no, _needs_ —to do whatever she can to fix it.

 

 

 

And so she continues on as the days become colder and colder, and Tharja wills herself to look forward instead of dwelling on the image of grey-brown eyes that has burned itself into her mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this was technically a week and a half after AYL22 but it's close enough, right? RIGHT? Anyway, hope this was okay...because this is literally the last time anything is going to feel remotely filler-ish, I think. I hope. Maybe. Anyway, if I goofed up a lot and you hate it I'm so sorry...  
> If you want to talk about this or any of my other work but don't like leaving comments, feel free to follow me or just plain send me a message [ on Tumblr ](https://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com). I tend to get overexcited if I know you're from AO3 but sometimes I can't tell so...yeah. Okay, bye, time to start on ~~one of the like 10+ other fics I have going on because my brain is an asshole~~ AYL24!


	24. Renewal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a dull night turns into an enchanted evening.

Just as they were only the year before, the events of Nagamas are mostly a blur.

 

Of course, Tharja has vague impressions of the days leading up to and immediately following the holiday, busy though they are. Nagamas is a warm evening filled with laughter in a brightly-lit, familiar place. _Home._ There are people there with her, she isn’t alone; she knows now that it was foolish to ever say she was alone, because she cannot be. Not with a family like the one with which she has been blessed.

 

She has love all around her, so thick (and frankly, almost overdone) that she’s sure if she just reached out her hand to touch it, she could.

 

They decide to take a walk together, in spite of the cold, because it is rare to have them all in one place without any forms of stress to get in the way.

 

The tree in the neighbourhood park is beautiful, and yet Tharja pays it little attention past the initial bout of appreciation. Nah is holding her hand, her woolen mitten fitting warmly with Tharja’s (impractical) leather glove. Tharja somehow spots Robin with the sister the younger woman has mentioned, who, as she is completely unsurprised to find, is essentially a tattoo-less, actual-clothing-clad Aversa. She looks happier than she ever had before, in the old world.

They both do.

No. They _all_ do.

Neither of the white-haired women notices Tharja or the huddle of manaketes and Anna that have formed at her side, and she is allowed a few blissful moments of watching the snow fall on Robin’s head, crowning her purple toque with glistening white.

 

It’s an almost perfect Nagamas. _Almost._

 

New Year’s Eve, however, completely blows that all away, and Tharja remembers nearly every second of it with perfect clarity.

Though Tharja’s entire family is practically coerced into spending the end of the year at a faculty-and-board-get-together, of all things, Tharja feels a strange sense of peace as the final hours of the year tick by. At the very least the premise of the gathering is interesting: a masquerade ball, complete with classical music to classically dance to, and sponsored by the board (no doubt more to showcase the incredible wealth of the university’s backers than anything else). _How cute_. Still, it’s been a long while since any of them has been able to wear the masks they’d brought over from Rosanne a few hundred years ago, and they _are_ rather lovely.

 

It would be a shame to miss the opportunity.

 

Tharja is sorry for the look on Nah’s face—at least, what can be seen of it—as they all climb into the taxi (better this way, since there’s sure to be drinking involved). Tharja understands that these functions have never been the youngest dragonkin’s favourite, but she really _must_ go; she is family to four professors, and one of only a few students of the university to have received an invitation.

 

Were she not to attend, it would make people wonder.

Tharja hates that, but it is how it is, and Nah promises not to sulk once they arrive.

 

As soon as they make it past the doors the carrot-topped manakete is off in a secluded corner of the grand hall chosen for the event. Tharja thinks that she sees the edge of Nah’s reading device popping out of her little bag, and she smiles to herself before being whisked off to engage in “pleasantries”. In truth it’s all just a sea of people she barely knows in domino masks; domino masks everywhere.

It’s a full thirty minutes before she’s able to catch her breath, standing against the off-gold of the drapery; a nice enough backdrop for the deep black of her dress. It’s very nearly a gown (but not quite) and she would feel overdressed were it not for the fact that nearly everybody else is similarly attired.

Tharja sees Cordelia—because who else could it be with such wildly perfect hair?—in an impeccable dark green number that fits her in the most striking way, and she catches Tharja’s eyes with minimal effort. Tharja feels the weight of another familiar gaze and turns slightly, to find Olivia looking impossibly radiant standing at her adoptive sister’s side. The pinkette’s champagne-coloured dress glitters in the light, mask perfectly matched and fitted, and the pair is so dazzling that Tharja almost misses it when they smile warmly in her direction. At her.

Lovingly, almost.

Fondly, certainly.

Olivia’s eyes dart off to another side of the room and she nods to her sister before they walk up to Tharja, who can’t help the compliments that fall from her lips. She apologizes, because Tiki, Nowi, and Anna are off speaking with a few of the board members; among them are Cordelia’s mother (her mask held upon a silver-painted stick) and, if Tharja is not mistaken, Robin’s father, who holds a mask upon a stick as well; dark grey, to match his suit. He looks, thankfully, much less awful than Validar had in his day, though there are some vague resemblances to her once-hierophant that make her feel a little strange.

She’s less uncomfortable than she’d thought she would be, all things considered; even though everybody is more easily recognizable than a masquerade would suggest.

“You look beautiful, Tharja!” Olivia is earnest in her compliments as always, earning a wider smile than Tharja had thought possible. She’s expecting it when Olivia’s thin, strong arms wrap around her briefly, and she allows herself to return the affection, albeit with restraint. She’s still Olivia’s professor, after all.

 

There are only so many lines she’s willing to cross.

 

It is Cordelia who surprises her by leaning in for a warm hug, echoing the compliment with great sincerity, before catching Tharja just-so and whispering, with the most ladylike discretion in the world, “You _will_ be dancing later, yes?” The feathered edges of her perfectly-fitted domino accent the colour of her lips and her striking eyes and Tharja is taken aback by how pretty Cordelia is up close.

She’s seen it before, of course, but not like this.

All that she can do is nod dumbly in response. She’s not a terrible dancer…not anymore, at least. Anna and Tiki had taught her how to look good about it even without any solid ballroom skills. Besides, with the way Cordelia had spoken…It isn’t a question, and Tharja knows it. She nods again when Olivia and Cordelia excuse themselves, although they promise to find her again later.

 

The entirety of the dinner is conducted before Tharja realizes that Cordelia had, perhaps, not been asking for herself.

 

She waits until the servers have moved off before her eyes sweep the room as carefully as they can without seeming as if she’s looking for somebody in particular. At first she is disappointed, the only familiar faces other than her family’s being those of the young women who’d left her side earlier, but then Tharja sees it. Sees her.

A woman is standing slightly away from the table at which she’d sat only minutes previous. Cordelia’s table. Olivia’s table. Validar’s (though that probably isn’t his name now) table. Beside her is a man in a deep blue suit, the mask covering half of his face decorated in blue and gold. _Chrom._

All of a sudden, Tharja feels that she knows why Cordelia had told her to be on the dance floor later. If that woman is who Tharja thinks it is…the wink is what cements the idea in her head, and she knows for sure that her guess is correct.

 

 

It can be nobody else but Robin standing there in black and gold and a feathered mask of the same colours…and for some reason, she seems to have decided to forgo her own rules, if only just for tonight.

 

 

***

 

 

The first dance is Tiki’s, as that is the safest social move to make once the dance floor opens up. Though there is little difference in their heights Tharja allows herself to be lead, sweeping through the other couples with one hand resting comfortably on Tiki’s shoulder, the other held in Tiki’s own. It is easy, falling into the proper position, though Tharja still feels herself struggling to relax just a little. They have danced together before, but it has been a long while since they have done so surrounded by such grandeur.

Eventually she allows herself to let go of her hesitancy, trusting in her partner to carry them through the dance.

Tiki is fabulous, as she is with most things, and Tharja knows that she must be smiling because of the way green eyes flash brightly at her from behind a stunning red-and-black domino. Tiki’s brilliant teeth grin back at her. “I’m glad to see you enjoying yourself,” the dragonkin croons as she glides across the floor with Tharja.

“It hasn’t been that long since the last time,” Tharja says, pouting as Tiki. The dragonkin’s only response is to raise one finely shaped eyebrow before twirling Tharja around in a graceful circle.

When they come back together Tiki laughs, the sound timed out to the tempo of the waltz. “If you say so.”

The laughter dies away only after the music has finished, and as the musicians prepare for their next number Tharja sees a swirl of green and red approach. Cordelia taps politely on Tiki’s shoulder, smiling all the while. “May I cut in, Doctor Sairi?” Tharja wonders again at what the point of a masquerade is when everybody is still so easily recognizable. Of course, Tiki’s distinct hair colour could have something to do with it, but _still_.

“Tiki, please. And of course you may, Cordelia,” Tiki says, the hint of another bout of laughter beginning to play across her face. “Enjoy!” She kisses Tharja’s cheek quickly, perhaps more influenced by three glasses of wine than she’d thought she would be, and then disappears into the crowd of dresses.

A moment later she reappears by Anna’s distinct ponytail; the only part of the redhead that Tharja can see through the throng of people.

Not that she gets the chance to do more than catch that single glance. As the dance begins—a classic Ylissean staple that involves the changing of partners twice—Tharja is swept up into strong arms almost before she can really register what’s going on, and she struggles to adjust to Cordelia’s much taller height for a moment before settling into the rhythm. It’s strangely comforting, and all very chivalrous on Cordelia’s end; the redhead holds her side gently, in an almost gentlemanly fashion. It’s nowhere near as personal as the way that Tiki had held her, but it’s not unpleasant at all.

For a moment, the only thing between them is the steps of the dance, the swaying, weaving motion creating a place of its own. It must be Olivia’s influence that has Cordelia dancing like as if she is a star instructor at a dance academy; Tharja herself is certain that she appears much more skillful following the younger woman’s lead than she would were their positions reversed.

Surely that’s what has drawn the eyes of the wallflowers and other non-dancers to the pair of them as they glide about; swirls of black and green and red. It’s either that or it’s because Cordelia is charming in a singular, almost commanding way; the epitome of what people _want_ in one (outwardly) unattainable, confident package. Not that they’d be wrong in feeling that way, but the once-sorceress is almost saddened by the thought. The redhead is so much _more_ than what people see her as.

In truth, Tharja’s surprised that the redhead is still single, but she remembers earlier heartfelt conversations and knows why, so she holds her tongue and focuses on the movement of her feet.

“We’ll be switching partners in a few seconds. It was lovely to dance with you, Tharja,” says Cordelia behind her mask and a beautiful smile.

“Wh—

She doesn’t get a chance to respond, and then she’s being spun and stopped by a different set of arms. Decidedly male arms. _Chrom_ , she thinks before the mystery man turns her around—a touch clumsily, she thinks, but gently. Almost nervously. _Yep, definitely Chrom._

She’s right.

“Hi, Tharja,” Chrom says, charming smile looking even more so under the mask. She has to laugh a little; the greeting is completely at odds with the stiff, precise movements of their bodies. “Having a good time?”

Clearing the smile from her lips, she tries her best to shake her head while not looking silly; this dance requires very specific positioning, and she wouldn’t want to embarrass herself. “What are you all up to, Chrom?” she asks, hoping that there is just a slight enough touch of steel in her voice to convince the young man that she means business. It’s more difficult than she’d thought, looking like her usual slightly-intimidating self in a ball gown and mask.

Chrom almost drops his barely-there touch on her waist as he stutters. Eventually, he manages out a, “I’m sorry, Tharja, but you know how she is…always has to have a grand strategy of some sort.”

“Strategy…what? Chrom, what are you talking about?”

The mask obscures the motion of his eyebrows, but from the set of his jaw Tharja can tell that he’s lifting one in that look that _everybody_ seems so fond of giving her. Should she know who he…right. She knows. Of course she knows.

“She also said you’d figure it out early. Told me to give you an option,” he says, backing away before pulling Tharja close again. Still so gently. As if he’s afraid he might break her by accident; as if she were made out of something weaker than flesh and bone and blood and _magic_. Not that he’s aware of that last part.

“What option?”

“To take an early leave from the dance floor. Do you want to? Or do you want to finish the dance and see what happens?”

The youthful grin tugging at the corners of the blue-haired man’s lips is enough to remind Tharja that she is old, so old, much too old to be playing such games…and yet she cannot repel the callings of curiosity that have been edging closer and closer towards her consciousness since the evening began. With a smile and the slightest shrug she can manage without making an overly noticeable movement, she says, “We may as well continue.”

Evidently it is the answer Chrom was hoping to hear; she feels herself being picked up bodily and swung about, and in her surprise she very nearly cries out. She is stopped only by the feeling of her feet touching the ground lightly again, accompanied by joyous laughs from other dancers who had been expecting the move. Steadying herself, Tharja does her best not to frown as the music begins to shift; soon she will be dancing with another partner.

“Okay. Here we go!”

Tharja feels herself spinning and knows that this is the pivotal moment, the critical point. She could stop herself mid-spin and leave. She could. Though in olden days such an action would have been interpreted as a deliberate slight, the modern age is much less particular about things such as honour-conduct; she would probably be able to make up an excuse without receiving the ire of anybody. And yet, as her eyes catch a glimpse of the person waiting for her, arms held in the receiving stance, she knows she would sooner die than leave.

Robin is still just a touch shorter than her, but the sly little smile on her face says that leading Tharja through the remainder of the dance will be no problem at all, and Tharja allows the younger woman to lock their hands together.

The first thing that really catches her eye is the dress. It’s scary how much it looks like the gown Robin had worn during Exalt Chrom’s coronation; black and flowing, edged in the dark gleam of golden lacework so intricate that it would dizzy one’s eyes to chase the patterns for more than a few seconds. The mask Robin wears echoes that, and with the addition of the dark plume of feathers cutting a fine contrast with snow white hair, Robin makes an absolutely striking sight. Tharja is embarrassed by how quickly the rush of love and need hits her as Robin’s arm encircles her waist; it’s entirely too intimate, especially given their relationship, but Tharja can’t even think straight enough to care.

“I’m surprised that you stayed.”

“What made you think that I wouldn’t?”

Robin doesn’t answer for a moment, guiding Tharja through a turn with more grace than Chrom, but less ease than Cordelia. “I told you we had to keep our distance, and so far you’ve avoided me. When I started doing the same I thought you were done with me.”

“I couldn’t be.”

“But it seemed like it. You kept your distance a little too well.”

“And you didn’t think that I’d wonder why _you_ decided not to, tonight?”

Robin’s grip about her waist tightens almost possessively, and Tharja is unfamiliar with the feeling; neither she nor her wife had ever really danced at the many balls the Exalt had seen thrown during the two years between Gangrel and Walhart. Outside of that, the first Robin had never been overtly jealous, choosing to put that energy towards reminding Tharja whose she was in the evenings as opposed to announcing it aloud in the streets.

The blush that rises to her cheeks is not for the Robin whose smile grows at the sight, but Tharja doesn’t see the need to correct her thought.

 

It’s such a small thing; a much smaller lie than Robin had seen fit to use all those months ago.

 

Somewhere between avoiding Robin’s gaze and concentrating solely on each step of her feet upon the floor, the dance ends, and Tharja is held close to Robin’s chest. Her heartbeat thuds loudly against her ribs, and she is sure that Robin can feel it. If she breathes in slowly enough, concentrates hard enough, she can feel Robin’s heart beating too.

“Wait,” says the younger woman when Tharja makes to leave. “One more dance.” The conductor ( _gods, this event is pretentious_ ) announces that he intends for the new year to begin with a dance, and the instrumental strains that begin at his gesture are entirely too familiar. She knows this dance better than she knows any other.

Tharja glances about the room, catching Tiki and Anna walking back onto the dance floor together. They don’t see her, and she looks back at Robin, suddenly unsure. She’s proud of herself for being able to tolerate Robin’s presence without slipping back into her desperate lovesickness (though of course it persists so strongly it is still a struggle not to just take Robin’s lips with her own). Even still, she isn’t entirely sure that she could handle ringing in the dawn of a new year in Robin’s arms.

“Please, Tharja.”

Something in her breaks and though Tharja knows that she can survive on her own, that her happiness is not as linked to finding Robin (to being with Robin) as she had once believed, she wants it to be. She wants Robin to be her life, the way she had been before. Tharja knows it is indecisive, knows that only months ago she had sworn to become her own person, but Robin is holding her now, closely, softly, and she simply cannot resist.

She manages a composed, “Very well then. Shall we?” just as the conductor begins in earnest, and the smile on Robin’s face is so wide that it is impossible to mistake her for anybody else, even with the mask obscuring half of her face.

She is surprised and—quite honestly—flustered when the younger woman laughs gently at the touch of Tharja’s hand on her shoulder. “For a new year, I think we should try something new,” Robin says as she gently guides Tharja’s hand to her side, pressing cool skin against the fabric at her waist. “Why don’t you lead?”

Tharja stumbles over herself, the words that spill from her mouth just as clumsy when she stutters out, “I-I’ve never led.” She lets go of Robin’s waist, putting a good bit of distance between them now.

Though the mask covers her forehead, Tharja is sure that Robin’s brows have lifted up towards her hairline. Robin’s grin is positively predatory as she guides Tharja to a more favourable spot on the floor. For her part, Tharja feels strange as the white-haired woman attaches her hands to the right places, and then relinquishes control. Tharja sighs and begins, but her inexperience is obvious when she drops Robin’s hand once they begin to move.

They settle in an empty pocket in the middle of the other dancers, and she drops it again.

She makes it a few steps, with Robin doing her best not to lead but failing miserably, and Tharja is ashamed because she should know the choreography much better than this. One of Robin’s hands pushes against her chest and she almost stumbles back before remembering that this is all part of the dance. She skitters about the floor with her hand on Robin’s waist, willing herself to not look like a fool before she crashes bodily into a man and his partner.

“The fuck?” His rough voice is so out of place in the suave sophistication of the hall that Tharja almost laughs.

“Your fault,” Robin hisses to the man, and Tharja is ready to give up. She will celebrate the birth of a new year as far away from the dance floor as she can manage to be. That is the thought in her head as Robin’s hand touches her cheek for the briefest instant, and when Tharja looks again she feels the protest in her body die away; she will stay on this dance floor and she will finish this song.

The clock ticks ever towards midnight.

Robin’s smile is the most beautiful thing Tharja has seen all night, encouraging and soft; warm and sweet, yet laced with that same familiar mischief for which Robin Grimm is so popular.

She tries again as the music rises, pleased when her feet follow through as she steps opposite the pattern made by Robin’s own feet. They separate, gliding apart—though her eyes never leave Robin’s—before Robin spins outward, then back into Tharja’s spread palm. When she spins outward again, Tharja is ready, and as Robin returns to her she clasps their hands together. The conductor’s song swirls around them until all that Tharja can really hear is the beating of her heart and the quickened pace of her breath.

And then the countdown begins.

_“Ten!”_

 

Tharja forces herself to think about something else, anything else. She’s never liked New Year’s Eve at this moment, the beginning of the countdown, because all it has ever done is remind her that the world is undergoing a renewal and she is still alive and unhappy, helpless in her pining.

The music is still playing and Robin is pressed up so tightly to her chest that she barely has to hold on to the younger woman’s waist to keep them together. Still, she cannot bring herself to let go.

 

_“Nine!”_

 

Everybody on the dance floor seems to be torn between dancing or keeping still in the moment, preserving it as best they can, and Tharja herself is no better. Thankfully Robin is there, anchoring her in place with the simple rise and fall of her chest. She thinks that she can spot Cordelia—or is it Anna with her hair down?—revolving slowly in somebody’s arms, but she can’t be sure and she can’t focus clearly.

She’s not even sure she wants to see anything aside from what’s right in front of her, anyway.

_“Eight!”_

 

Robin is radiant, lips parted to showcase the brilliance of her smile as she presses herself so closely to Tharja that the older woman thinks it cannot be a mistake. It certainly does not feel like one.

_“Seven!”_

 

Robin’s hand is lifted from her shoulder, tracing a path up Tharja’s neck and stopping to cup her cheek softly. _Don’t_ , she wants to say. But she knows she could never ask Robin not to touch her like this.

_“Six!”_

 

Robin is dazzling. “For a woman who’s never led anybody else in a dance, I think you did splendidly.” It’s honest, even though Robin had been subtly controlling her movements the entire time. Tharja can’t help but smile in return as Robin’s laugh mingles with the last notes.

_“Five!”_

 

The conductor is really milking this for all he’s worth, she thinks as the musicians carry on. Robin’s hand has not left her face and Tharja feels Robin’s warmth through the think fabric of the younger woman’s glove. “Do you believe in wiping the slates clean at the start of the New Year?”

_“Four!”_

 

She knows that this is risky; that Robin’s father is somewhere on the dance floor, as well as several of Tharja’s colleagues. Even with the masks covering their faces, she is sure people will know who it is they are looking at…still, it must be the heat of the dance, or the simple pleasure of holding Robin almost flush against her—as much as their respective dresses will allow—but she finds it difficult to control herself. “Yes. You?”

_“Three!”_

 

Robin’s grin is positively enchanting under the light of the moon, the stars, and the chandeliers hanging precariously above their heads. Tharja cannot look away. All that she can see is the woman in her arms. “Yeah.”

_“Two!”_

 

Tharja feels it when she looks at Robin, lips still parted, hair perfect in spite of the dancing. She feels the familiar drop in her stomach, the lust playing in the streams of her blood with wild abandon. Her heartbeat is surely audible now. She swallows, embarrassed by the sound but sure she might drown otherwise.

_Gods, if only she knew._

Though Tharja isn’t sure she wants Robin to know just how much she is needed; not in the deep-rooted way that Tharja needs her now, has needed her for nearly two thousand years.

_“One!”_

 

“Happy New Year’s, Tharja,” Robin says, and Tharja does not have long to wonder how a whisper could be so loud when Robin’s lips catch hers.

The fire behind the kiss is similar to the way it had felt two years ago in her office, but Tharja is much more relaxed now than she had been then. She knows how dangerous this is, but…something about this night, about Robin, she finds it difficult to resist. It is not until the younger woman moans loudly enough for her to hear over the sounds of cheering—thankfully not for them, but in celebration of yet another year—that Tharja pulls away.

“Robin, I—

The white-haired woman shakes her head, winking in her usual way. “I’m sorry.” She clearly isn’t. The blush on her cheeks is only have hidden underneath the mask, and it gives Tharja a warm feeling just looking at it. “I just couldn’t help myself. But it was stupid, I know.”

Tharja shakes her head back, unable to keep her smile off of her lips, “It was…but I’m glad that you did it.”

“That’s what I was hoping to hear.” Robin pulls Tharja into another tight embrace and Tharja feels the younger woman’s lips graze her ear as she whispers, “I want to be with you. I _will_ be with you. Just wait for me a little longer, please.”

 

 

 

Tharja’s smile persists even long after she’s home and stripped of her dress, lying underneath her covers and staring at the ceiling; too lovestruck to properly fall asleep. Perhaps it is slightly pathetic, to feel so much happiness from a single kiss and conversation, but everything around Tharja feels lighter now. Coupled with her improved attitude, she can only imagine what joys the year has left for her to uncover—Robin’s request is as good as a vow, in her mind.

 

Of course she will wait.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

January is a blur.

February is a blur.

April is busy, but essentially, a blur.

 

Tharja is bolstered by her own lease on life, her family’s encouragements, and the echo of Robin’s words playing over and over and over in her head, so soft and so full of hope—so full of something else: _love_ , perhaps?—that she knows she sounds like a moron but she can’t help but whisper them to herself. When she is alone, of course.

 

Because she wants to be with Robin. She wants it in spite of the difficulties and the challenges they will surely face; because she cannot imagine having to live another year without Robin by her side when they are so very close to having each other forever—or, as long as Robin wants her for. _Please, forever._

 

 

 

Of course she will wait, she tells herself.

She’s waited this long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me that all of my actual experience pining over a girl has been worth something (namely, the improvement of my craft).
> 
> That aside, I hope you liked this chapter. I am so, so scared to be finishing up, but if AYL isn't over by the end of this month I will film myself chewing on my Pikachu hat. Or something equally as ridiculous.
> 
> As per usual, feel free to comment or offer con-crit if you want. Also feel free to hit me up [ on Tumblr ](lazywritergirl.tumblr.com) if that's more your thing. Either way, no pressure!
> 
> Regardless of whether you want to say anything to me or not, I am deeply grateful to everybody who reads AYL. Thank you all for your time, and I hope that I'll be able to wrap everything up in a way you enjoy!


	25. Maturity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tough calls are made, and love is apparent in every corner.

 

It is early May, and all the final marks have been sent; the fourth-years who have qualified to graduate have received notice, and the stage is set for a new group of young people to move onward into the world.

The Shepherds—most specifically Robin—included.

It bothers Tharja more than it rightly should, because though she feels so much better than she ever did—barring how she had felt with her wife in her arms—she knows that she cannot afford to relax.

Not yet.

Robin is finished with her degree, yes, but the graduation will not be for another two months, and they cannot afford to enter into anything official yet. Tharja is no stranger to being the receiver of censure, especially where the general public is involved, but over time she has learned how to keep her private business to herself; she hopes to be able to convince Robin to do the same, even if only until things have settled down. In addition, she explains her thoughts to her family when asked; knowing that they are all waiting for what comes next.

 

Not that that stops them from acting as if her entire future is laid out as plain as day.

 

Tharja isn’t sure if it’s just a subconscious acknowledgement of her role as the youngest of the house, but Nah is the one who starts the ball rolling. “You’re not moving out, right, auntie?”

The question takes her aback. Although she and Tiki share arguably the strongest bond (that one extra year having added something special to their relationship), it is Nah into whom Tharja has poured all of her unused parental affections; she is as much  _Tharja's_  daughter as she is Nowi’s, blood and titles doing little to change that fact. It may as well be set in stone. ““Why would I do that? Do you want me to? Because I—

“ _No!_ ” Nah’s indignant expression only serves to make her look younger than she should, and Tharja can’t help patting the younger woman on the head although they are separated by—at most—three years of age; she never can remember just how old Nah had been when she’d first arrived at the Shepherds’ barracks.

“Then I won’t.”

“Good…” Nah says, allowing the contact even though it is slightly condescending in nature. “There’s more than enough room for Robin here anyway. And she’ll be in _your_ room, since you have a _mature_ relationship.”

“What are you talking about?”

Nah doesn’t respond, instead scooting out from under her aunt’s hand and turning up the volume on the television as her body launches towards “her” end of the couch. Soon she’s drowning Tharja’s lingering questions out with the sounds of anime—she’s paid enough attention to remember the word now—and loud, obnoxious slurps of soda.

Though Tharja doesn’t want to admit it she sees the briefest glimpse of her ideal future: it’s just the same as now, with Nah sitting on her end of the couch, only Tharja isn’t alone. Robin is there, _right there_ , and they’re watching together and she’s the only one who doesn’t understand the language and has to rely completely on the subtitles to understand what’s going on.

From the cheeky smile on Nah’s face Tharja can tell that she’s been played in some way, so she excuses herself after ruffling Nah’s hair one last time.

_What would it be like if she moved in?_

 

***

 

“Do you think you two will want to get married? Because while I don’t necessarily think you _need_ to, I would love to help with the planning.” Anna is next, for some reason, and Tharja wonders if they plan their Tharja-interventions out a certain way; like, first Nah, then Anna _or_ Nowi, Tiki last of all…because that’s what they seem to be doing, and it’s both confusing and comforting in a way.

She still has no clue what she’d ever done to deserve such a wonderful family, but she isn’t about to question Naga or whatever other gods may exist. Not now, of all times.

Even so, the question is off-putting. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought about a wedding much. Not until _now_. “I think…that that would be entirely up to her.”

“But it’s your life too, Tharja,” Anna says, shaking her head so quickly that her ponytail all but slaps her in the face. “Ugh.” Tharja suppresses a laugh when Anna ends up with a mouthful of red hair.

“I know that, but I’ve been married before, and she hasn’t. If she wants to, I’ll do so, and gladly, but if she doesn’t want to, for whatever reason, I won’t object.”

“Why not?”

Tharja doesn’t know if she’s allowed to say why not; Robin is still mostly a mystery, even for her, after all, and the few deeply personal things that she knows about the younger woman are so _deeply_ personal that she doesn’t think it’s her place to say anything. Not even to Anna, with whom Tharja would trust her life. Luckily the redhead seems to understand that, and she puts her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“No need to explain. If I’m meant to learn about it, she’ll tell me herself.”

“Thank you,” Tharja says, slightly embarrassed that Anna had so deftly manoeuvred them out of that potentially awkward situation with such ease.

The gratitude dies away just a little when Anna slings an arm across her shoulder and says, in the sing-song voice she usually reserves for teasing, “I think, if you _do_ get married, she’ll be a stunning bride! And so would you, of course… _hey_ maybe you should wear a white dress and she can wear a black one, so it isn’t just your hair that contrasts. Wouldn’t that be just _gorgeous_? I can picture it now! We’ll get…” Tharja lets Anna ramble on and on, because that’s the fastest way to get Anna to stop talking. Still, she must admit, even if only to herself, that it’s nice—ridiculously so—to listen to Anna talk about wedding details. It almost makes it feel as if something like that _could_ happen.

_What would it be like, watching her walk down the aisle?_

 

***

 

Nowi approaches before Tiki, and by now Tharja is so confident in her theory about them patterning these talks that she just lets it happen. At least Nowi is subtle about it, and much more realistic. She opens up the conversation with a direct question, leaving no room for Tharja to incorrectly guess what it is she wishes to discuss. “How long do you plan on waiting before asking her where you two stand?”

“What do you mean?”

Nowi gives her a look that asks her how she could be so stupid. “How long. Do you plan on waiting. To ask Robin what’s going on between you?”

Tharja shrugs in response. “We’ll figure things out whenever she’s ready to.”

“What have we said about waiting for other people to do something about what we want in life?” Nowi’s eyes are bright and large and strangely maternal, and it’s a strange feeling to have that gaze aimed at her but Tharja cannot complain. “It isn’t fair to you, is it?” Nowi only wants what is best for her—and for Robin, on a certain level.

“This isn’t just my life that we’re talking about,” she counters. And it isn’t. It’s her life too, of course, as Anna had pointed out, but it is also Robin’s life, and Robin is the lesser-lived of the pair of them. She has to take that into account. Regardless of how much she has actually accomplished, regardless of how much she has actually achieved, Robin is so very, very young, and Tharja has had almost one hundred times as many chances—almost one hundred times as many choices—as Robin has had.

She cannot take this choice away from the woman she loves; there would be no fairness in that.

“It isn’t, you’re right,” Nowi acquiesces, “but still, it is _half_ yours. It’s in both of your best interests to know what’s going on.”

“I _know_ that.”

Nowi nods slowly, deliberately. “I’m sure you do…but you haven’t thought about it, have you?”

“Not really.”

“For both your sake and hers…you should.” Nowi’s smile is sad, pained almost, and Tharja doesn’t expect her to say, “Because if you both decide that this life is all you want…that you don’t wish to prolong your suffering…we will also need some time.”

The tail end of the sentence is forced out at the same time as a shuddering breath, and Tharja is at once acutely aware of what that means. Of course she couldn’t have hidden her feelings from them; they must know how tired she is of…this. Of existence. And yet they have said nothing until now, now that it is entirely possible that these next fifty, sixty, perhaps seventy years will be the last they share as a family. As a whole.

_What would she want more…immortality? Or peace? Or would she want me at all?_

***

Strangely enough, it appears that Tharja’s theory is incorrect not because somebody approaches her before Tiki (after all, everybody else has said their piece) but because Tiki doesn’t approach her with some sort of overture into a discussion about Robin. Tharja is wary for the first few days after her talk with Nowi, but then the days bleed into a week, and then another, and then it is June and still Tiki has said nothing about Robin.

 

The graduation comes and goes, and they share tears and congratulations with the Shepherds, and still, Tiki says nothing that would suggest that she’s thinking about what happens next in Tharja’s life.

 

Predictably, it is most difficult to puzzle out how the once-Voice is feeling. For all of their closeness, they are sometimes the farthest apart; Tiki explains it as like-mindedness, but Tharja can’t see the logic behind that. She realizes, of course, that had the roles been reversed she would not have felt it necessary to pester Tiki on her plans concerning her reincarnated love, but… _oh_. That’s what Tiki meant.

She realizes a week later, as she’s standing outside of Tiki’s door, waiting for the older woman to let her in so that they might talk, that this is exactly what she would have done; said nothing, waited for Tiki to come to her just as Tiki has certainly been waiting for these past two months. If she’s honest, this talk is long overdue, but ill-timed; she’s supposed to be meeting with Robin later, at the park where Tharja seems to have made most of her major, life-changing decisions.

 

But family comes first.

 

“Come in, Tharja,” Tiki’s voice calls, melodic as ever in spite of the muffling of the door.

She steps inside, pushing the wood to a close behind her before she joins Tiki at the edge of the dragonkin’s bed. “You haven’t been very talkative, lately,” she says. Tiki smirks, understanding that “talkative” is code for “asking about Robin in some capacity”.

“I didn’t think that you’d appreciate it, what with how the others have been carrying on.”

And it’s true, in a way, that she wouldn’t have appreciated Tiki joining in, because after those first instances of conversation, Nah and Anna and Nowi had not stopped on the subject of Robin. In fact, it had often felt as if they were ganging up on her; pushing her to make a decision for reasons she can only vaguely guess at. Silence (as she knows it now) is new.

“You’re right…but you probably also knew it would come to this.”

“Come to…what?” Tiki asks, the same familiar grin on her face more comforting than Tharja could have ever thought it would be.

“You know very well _what_.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

They sit there together, on the edge of Tiki’s bed, in companionable, familiar silence, and Tharja knows it is a strange comparison but she feels like as if they are back at the Mila Tree, practically suspended in time. It feels the same, the modern comforts of Tiki’s room doing little to distract from the essence of the moment.

Tiki breaks the silence, bumping Tharja’s shoulder with her own as she says, “Are you nervous? The one thing you’ve wanted more than anything else, after all these years…”

“I’m scared.”

She hasn’t been able to admit it to herself, or to anybody else, not really, but there it is. In plain and simple language, there it is; she is so deathly afraid of everything going on. Of Robin. Of what their future might look like.

Of the possibility that it might not look like anything at all.

“You’re allowed to be,” Tiki says. Then, after a beat, “Honestly I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”

 “Am I supposed to feel this way?”

“Of course you are.” Tiki’s shoulder bumps hers again, and Tharja doesn’t even grimace at the slight roughness of the contact. It’s comforting in its own way. “That’s a sign of your maturity.”

“How?”

“When you’re young—and I don’t mean that in the years-you’ve-lived sense—you don’t think too much about the consequences. You don’t worry about the future because as far as you're concerned, it’s all just bright.”

“If that’s true then I’ve been mature since before all of this started,” Tharja jokes, because she’s always thought about the consequences. Laboured over them in her mind until words no longer make sense.

Tiki shakes her head, but the smile on her lips is fond. “There is a difference between lamenting the past, hating yourself for things you can no longer change and fearing what will come as a result, and the worrying that you are doing now. Because now it isn’t all about yourself. But then…you knew that. You know that better than any of us. If I hadn’t known you as well as I do, I would have been surprised, but you have come so far into maturity on your own, Tharja.”

The proud edge in Tiki’s voice fills her with warmth, and Tharja leans against Tiki unreservedly; she is as she has always been: a constant pillar, a stalwart friend. “What did I ever do to deserve your kindness?”

“You accepted the cursed gift of immortality, knowing that you were not built for it.”

“And is that all?”

“Of course not. We love you very much, Tharja, and that is why we do what we do for you. And we will continue to support you even if…,” and here Tiki stops, and Tharja feels the cold dread in her stomach solidify because she knows for sure now; they know she wishes to die. And yet they will not stop her.

“Tiki—

“What you decide to do is your choice; yours and Robin’s. We will support you..whatever you choose. And that’s all there is to it,” Tiki says, and Tharja doesn’t have to wonder if those are tears on Tiki’s cheeks, because the dragonkin all but kicks her out of the room, closing the door with a shuddering sigh.

Tiki only ever cries alone.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Only hours later, and feeling heavier (of spirit) than she should all things considered, Tharja walks through the park, eyes taking in the sight of a waiting Robin as she rounds a familiar bend. The weather is strangely cool for late June, but Robin stands there in nice shorts and a simple, understated golf shirt, looking for all the world like the carefree new-degree-holder that she is. She’s by a bench, just smiling at Tharja’s approach, and yet she does not sit even when it is clear that she has been seen.

It’s a little strange, but Robin Grimm is strange in general (even if that is in the best way possible).

“You wanted to see me?” she asks when she’s standing almost directly in front of the younger woman.

“Is that all you have to say to me? Really?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know…something more.” Robin doesn’t shrug, only looks at Tharja with large, hopeful eyes and a half-smile that threatens to flip over into sadness should the older woman’s answer be wrong. She’s still guarded.

Tharja knows what Robin wants to hear. She wants to hear the words that Tharja has been dreaming of saying for so very, very long…and yet Tharja cannot bring herself to say them. This is unchartered territory; Robin Grimm is an adult—has been an adult for as long as Tharja has known her—and now she is free and she is here and she is aware of what Tharja is. She is all of these things and she is (hopefully) as in love with Tharja as Tharja is with her.

And Tharja doesn’t know what to say.

“I don’t know if I can…” is what comes out of her mouth.

Robin shakes her head slowly, mouth drawn in a little line, eyes full of concern. “I don’t understand. Why are you still holding back?

“I…” She has no answer for that.

“Have you fallen out of love with me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” For a moment Tharja thinks that she sees a glimmer of satisfaction in Robin’s eyes; _but what could that be?_ She does not dwell on it. “How could you…after all these years, how could you even _dare_ to suggest that?”

“I feel like I’m chasing after you; hounding you with my feelings,” Robin says. Her voice is strained. “Like I love you but you don’t feel the same.”

“What could I have possibly done to make you question that I love you more than I love my own life, more than my sanity, more than _everything_ I have come to love in almost two thousand years?” The words come out harsher than she means them to, but Tharja cannot help it; she is offended, to put it mildly.

“Then why don’t we do something about it, already? Marry me, Tharja.”

“What?” It is difficult to keep the alarm out of her voice but she cannot cover up the panic as Robin kneels before her, hand reaching for a spot somewhere underneath the bench. _Ah._ That explains so much.

When Robin’s hand comes back into view, Tharja’s heart tears itself between freezing and jumping out of her chest.

In Robin’s hand is a small bag that Tharja remembers all too well, and she knows that the blush in her cheeks is flourishing under Robin’s careful gaze. Her palms are sweating, too, and she is glad she does not have to speak because she isn’t sure she would be able to right now. Robin’s hand is in the bag one second, then out, and there is a small, velvet-covered box in her palm.

Tharja doesn’t need to guess what it holds.

The words she wants to say are right there, _right there_ on the tip of her tongue, but she knows she cannot bring them to life. Not now. Not without acting selfishly; more selfishly than Robin deserves. “S-stand up, Robin.” She wishes she could make herself sound more firm. It’s more difficult to turn away her life’s one dream than she’d thought.

“Tharja, please, I know that this isn’t ideal, and I could always propose to you again later, but…I want to ask you to marry me.”

“Don’t. Don’t you realize what that would mean for us? For my reputation? For yours?” She’s shaking now, and she doesn’t know why, and all that Tharja can hope is that there are no tears on her face because that would ruin everything. Well, ruin everything further.

“I’m no longer your student, Tharja! I didn’t even take a single class with you last year. What could anybody say?” Robin is still on bended knee, indignant, and yet, as Tharja is pleased to find, so deeply, heartbreakingly in love.

She hates herself for having to speak, but part of being mature—and she has matured, she knows—lies in knowing when to let things go and when to say what must be said. “You’ve only recently graduated, in case you’ve forgotten, and I _was_ your professor in both your second and third years. For courses you put towards a certificate.”

“I know, but—

“Do you want people to talk, to speculate aloud in crowded cafés about how Robin Grimm must have been sleeping with a professor the whole time? About how I must have seduced you when you were technically _under my authority_?”

“For all they know, _I_ seduced you…which, if we’re speaking in strict definitions, is the truth, sort of.” It’s a technicality, and one that wouldn’t matter to anybody on the board looking to drag either of their names through the mud.

“That isn’t the point! Do you want them to spread lies about us? Damaging lies about how we must have been carrying out our completely unethical, clandestine relationship for years under the board’s nose? Do you want everyone to look at you, to look at us, with that false knowledge in their heads, fuelling their interactions with us? Is that what you want for us?”

“Fuck them! What do you care about what people think after all this time? You’re so far beyond all of them, Tharja, so goddamned far!” Robin is on her feet now, the velvet-covered box clenched tightly in her fist. She’s shaking now, too, and Tharja wonders what it is about this park that always makes things between them come to this. Wonders what it is about Robin, and what it is about herself, that makes them act like this.

She breathes deeply.

“But you aren’t. Not yet. And even I cannot turn away from public dissent for long. Do you forget that I have lived to watch almost two thousand years of progress unfold? I know well enough what people are like.” Tharja knows from the half-concealed flinch that Robin has indeed forgotten, if only for a moment, that one inescapable truth. “This could ruin you, Robin; it could haunt you for the rest of your life.” _And then you’d grow to resent me. You’d grow to hate the choice you’ve made, and you would leave me, and I would die without the satisfaction of death’s freedom, without you, without the future I have been so foolish as to dream up._

“You said once that you still have some magic in you… can’t you do something about it? Make people forget that you ever taught me.” Of course it is so simple. Robin is so young.

“Do you think I still have that much power? And even if I did, what you’re suggesting would mean erasing all memory that you ever finished a thesis, that you ever received your certificates and honours, that you ever had classes with me. You’d be back in your first year with none but us to know better, because I cannot pick-and-choose and create substitute memories to fill in all the gaps.”

“I can do the degree over.”

Tharja knows why Robin says it, but it sits so poorly with her that she cannot help the outburst that follows. “No! I won’t allow you to sacrifice another three years of your life just for this! For what? You would be wasting your life.”

“How can you say that? Do you think I want to allow _you_ to continue to sacrifice yourself, your happiness, simply for my sake? Tharja, you have sacrificed enough…this is my burden to bear now.”

She knows that Robin’s words are heartfelt, and that scares her more than she wants to admit. The way that she would throw such hard work away, as if it were nothing…is frightening. Almost alarming. Not for the first time Tharja is reminded that she knows so little about Robin, that they know so little of each other that it’s almost embarrassing no matter how much love they claim to hold between them.

“No. Don’t you understand? I would never, _never_ want you to feel what I have felt. You cannot make sacrifices for me, Robin, not like this.”

Robin is silent for a moment, clearly frustrated, and when the next words leave her lips they are laden with complex emotion that Tharja cannot begin to understand. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

The answer should be clear. “I can’t watch you ruin the life you’ve been working towards. I love you more than that.”

“And I’m telling you that I love you more than those old dreams.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t throw it all away. You have plans. You have friends, and a life, and a world to explore, and while I want to be there with you I can’t ask that you make space in those plans for me until you’re ready.”

Tharja has been looking for Robin’s motivations, has been waiting for the younger woman to reveal herself, and in her next words that is exactly what Robin does. “It doesn’t sound like you want to be with me at all! How do I know that you’re not just waiting for me to die, waiting for a better version of me to come along?”

She hadn’t expected Robin’s reason for all of this to make her so angry.

“Don’t you _ever_ say that again! How could you possibly say that? Do you not think that I would sooner die than even _think_ of it happening to you?”

“Sometimes I wonder how you can be so sincere when all that you seem to be doing is pushing me away with both hands.”

Robin says that with honest eyes, and yet Tharja cannot help but feel how cold Robin’s words sound as she places the ring box back in its tiny bag.

“Robin, I need you to choose me because you truly want this life. Not because you happen to be riding on the adrenaline of success and the promise of new freedom, and not because you’re afraid I won’t be here to return to should you leave.”

“That’s not why I’m doing this.”

“Is that also why you’ve all of a sudden decided that you’re not going to go on a tour of Valm with the rest of your friends?”

“How did you—

“I had everybody else in at least one of my courses this year. Even Henry, in the winter term. And they all agreed that this post-graduation trip was going to be the best time of your lives.”

Robin’s hand reaches up and rubs the back of her neck. “There will be other trips…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You made these plans years ago. You all planned this trip with each and every one of your interests in mind. They want, no, _need_ you to go with them. And as for me…I need you to go with them, too.”

“What are you trying to say?” Robin asks, and for the first time Tharja gets the feeling that she’s actually listening and not just doing so in order to argue.

“I’m saying that if you truly love me as you believe you do, you will go and you will have the best time of your life. You will chase your old dreams and I will have to let you go to chase them, and if this is finally the time for Naga to grant me you, for however long the rest of my life may be, then you will choose me when the time comes.”

“Don’t give me that. How can you ask me to wait for a time that might never come, to put faith in a deity I’ve never believed in? How can you ask me to leave you behind without first making sure I will always come back to you?” There’s something frightening in Robin’s eyes, something dark and deep and despairing in a way that Tharja has never known. It’s that fear of the unknown that marks the difference between them; the mature patience of eons against the brash idealism of youth.

Robin wants to know of certainties that neither of them could possibly know.

 “There are no guarantees, Robin, but I have faith in something stronger than time, stronger than Naga, and if you do not share that same faith then rest assured that I _will_ wait for you until my very bones have returned to sand.”

“…Do you mean that?”

“Of course.” And then, without really knowing what it is she plans to do, Tharja steps into Robin’s space. The younger woman is taller than her now, albeit only by a little, and with the slightest hint of fear she places a hand on the back of Robin’s neck, pulling her down as gently as possible. When their lips meets she is surprised at how desperate the other woman feels, but she cannot say she is any better.

_What would it be like, being able to do this whenever I want?_

 

Kissing Robin now is different from that panic-inducing afternoon in her office. Different too, from the quick burst of passion on New Year’s. Even more so now than ever, Robin feels perfect and right and sweeter than life itself, and Tharja drinks her in greedily, knowing it isn’t the wisest move to make when she is trying to convince the younger woman to leave her side.

Hoping it will serve as enough of a promise, she pours every scrap of love she can summon into their kiss, and when they finally part and Robin whispers a resigned, “I’ll go”, Tharja kisses her once more.

 

 

 

 

 

Just in case things don’t work out the way she hopes they will.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go.
> 
> This was mostly **conversations** , but I think that's important...because I said so. I dunno.  
> Anyway...we're almost there, everybody. If you have any questions/want to talk/just plain want to see what I'm like as a human (kinda) check out [ my Tumblr ](https://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com). I'd love to hear from you, but it's okay if not! We're all busy people!
> 
> Chapter 26 should be up on or before the 19th (but probably will not be as quick of an update as this was)!


	26. Momentum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which life finally begins to look up for Tharja and Robin.

Tharja and Robin are able to come to a mature agreement the next day; they will take things slow, because it’s silly to begin a relationship right before one half of it is set to leave for half a year. That’s only one reason, of course. After all, Robin is far too young to get married, and Tharja is far too old to be so spontaneous as to rush into marriage—even if it is to the woman for whom she has pined for almost two millennia. Besides the relationship between them can’t help but naturally shift into something resembling that of two tentative lovers anyway.

 

 

Which, for all intents and purposes, is exactly what they are.

 

 

One week later, when Robin Grimm leaves for Valm with her dearest friends in tow, she is twenty-one years old; freshly-graduated from one of the best universities on the continent, and obviously very madly, _desperately_ —as she says—in love with Tharja. It’s written in the smile she shoots the older woman as she stands at a kiosk with Henry, in the way her eyes follow Tharja for as long as they can before looking away. And Tharja, whose life has now hit just about one thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four years, loves Robin so much that she can’t help but cry a little when the younger woman disappears behind the first security check at the Ylisstol International Airport.

 

In a way it hurts more than she’d expected it to, and Tharja can’t help but worry after Robin’s safety even though she knows, realistically, that nothing will happen. She knows, of course, that this is for the good of their relationship as much as it is for Robin (and in a way, for her, because she still has growing to do no matter her age). The feeling in her stomach isn’t total emotional devastation, which is good, and Tharja is pleased with herself. It appears that finally, _finally_ , she too can enjoy the gift of rationality that tells her that it’s _only_ six months, only _six_ months, _only six months_ until Robin is back in Ylisstol _._

 

 

***

 

 

When Robin and the Shepherds return six months later it is Tharja who picks them all up in spite of the fact that they are (with two exceptions) the children of influential—not to mention wealthy—families. Tharja half-explains that she means it as a simple gesture of friendship, and not just as an attempt at a late birthday gift (because Robin’s twenty-second birthday has come and gone in the time the Shepherds have been away). Even though it is the dead of winter and the truck she’s driving is an expensive rental (to accommodate so many passengers and their corresponding luggage), she is over-the-moon-happy as the group makes their way to her.

 

She’s missed them _all_ , much to her surprise, though the way that Robin flings herself—her two-or-three-inches-taller-than-Tharja-now-self—into Tharja’s waiting arms makes it clear who she has missed the most; something she says aloud without meaning to.

 

“We’d be concerned if that _wasn’t_ the case, nya ha!” chimes Henry when it is his turn for a hug of greeting. Tharja is always afraid with Henry, afraid of how to touch him, or if she even can, but this young man, though scarred and broken and delicate, is not those things in the same way that the dark mage she once knew had been. He accepts her hug with little discomfort, even holding her as well, loosely, but with a certain sense of affection behind it.

When that’s over with he climbs right into the back of the truck, pulling in his tatty luggage behind him. After a few jokes traded with Chrom and Gaius it becomes apparent that he wants to ride the whole way home like that, and so Tharja just shrugs and helps with the rest of their things. It isn’t legal or smart, but Tharja is too happy at the sight of them all safe and sound to want to ruin the young man’s fun.

 

 

 

“Chrom and I took _tons_ of pictures, Tharja! I’ve got great shots of all my favourite sweets…you shoulda been there!”

 

“You should have seen him, Tharja, more excitable than a little kid every time we passed a bakery or sweet shop! It was…very cute.”

 

 “The entire thing was most educational; though I must say that not all of our fellow tourists were interested in the rich culture of the Valmese continent, and honestly some were _rather_ boorish…”

 

“Nya ha! Did you know that Valm has a _super_ bloody history? You probably did, but _man_ was I impressed!”

 

“The dances we saw were phenomenal…I-I was even able to get a few performance DVDs!”

 

“Truly a wonderful vacation…perhaps next time you’ll be accompanying us.”

 

“I think we would all _love_ that, wouldn’t you, Tharja? _I know I would_.”

 

 

 

The chatter is incessant as she drops all of them off, starting with Henry, who is now living with a “serious” girlfriend whom Tharja has yet to meet, and ending with, predictably, Robin herself. It only makes sense; their neighbourhoods are adjacent, after all, though arguably Cordelia and Olivia (who live in the neighbourhood on Tharja’s neighbourhood’s _other_ side) are just as close, but...Tharja stops herself from adding on to what has become a confusing circle of thoughts.

Robin seems to have caught on to Tharja’s mental wandering, because right as Tharja is sure her brain is about to go off on another tangent the younger woman says,  “Hey, so now that I’ve had time to think about it…”

“Robin,” Tharja says as she pulls into the Grimm family’s driveway. “Don’t.” This time she says it fondly, because she knows that Robin wouldn’t be so insensitive as to joke about their relationship (as precarious as the situation feels every time she refers to what’s between them as such). At least, she hopes that six months or so of growth have helped Robin become mature enough to know that joking about it would only hurt them both.

Robin’s hand is warm through the glove that cups Tharja’s cheek, and the younger woman leans in with a delicate smile on her lips. “Fine. I won’t. But may I at least have a kiss before we pretend that we’re _just_ interested in each other and _not_ meant to be together forever?”

 

Robin, as Tharja has learned thanks to the many emails sent in Robin’s absence, is a sap of the highest order.

 

Amused, Tharja doesn’t bother to pretend she isn’t willing, and the pleasant heat that spreads from Robin’s lips to hers is so welcome that her hands have found the release button for her seatbelt before she really knows what’s happening. Robin’s genius shows through in all aspects; she’s already undone her own restraint-system, and both hers and Tharja’s armrests have already been pushed aside. Tharja feels that it’s rather juvenile of her, to be making out with an ex-student in the front seat of a rental truck while they’re parked just outside of said ex-student’s university-board-member-father’s house, but she’s missed Robin’s lips and the way that Robin’s tongue—

 _Knock, knock._ A dry, sultry, window-muffled voice follows the sounds. “Really now, you’d think you two would be more _careful_.” A beat later and then, “I already got your things out of the back, little bird…you must not have heard me over the sounds of your collective moaning.”

 

Tharja had never been afraid of Aversa, King Validar’s right-hand, but she is _inexplicably_ terrified of Aversa Grimm, and that fear is enough to have her jolting back from Robin as if she has been stung, facial expression akin to that of a teenager caught in the same position.

 

Robin, however, is not worried in the least, and she hops out of the truck after pressing one last quick kiss to Tharja’s lips. “Thanks for picking me up, Tharja! I’ll see you tomorrow morning!”

The younger woman has already made it to her sister’s side when Tharja manages a quick, “What?” She has to roll the window down and repeat the question before she gets an answer.

“Oh, Tiki invited me for breakfast!” The shine in Robin’s eyes is so bright it’s more blinding than the fresh snow that has begun to fall.

Tharja can only offer a strained smile in return as the Grimm sisters wave her off, because _of course Tiki did that._ Still, the thought is not unpleasant—Robin joining them for breakfast and not having to worry about a scandal erupting should she be spotted leaving their home—and so Tharja lets it slide. For the most part.

 

She still can’t help but make a few snarky comments when she gets home, but nobody seems to pay her any mind.

 

***

 

One breakfast at their house turns into a ritual as the year bleeds into the next and Robin presses for more and more teaching in the ways of her memories. Tharja is delighted although she attempts not to show it, and, not really knowing how she’s doing it, she begins the process of explaining everything. Robin Grimm is as delightful a student as ever.

As they sift through every experience together, slowly, Tharja watches the Shepherds struggle to find their footing in their new, adult world. She is still so proud, yet so humbled that they have chosen to involve her in the new lives, and it makes her tear up every so often when she thinks nobody will notice. Of course they do, but the Shepherds are by now far too used to Tharja’s small strange habits that they just take it with a smile on their face and a tissue ready in their hands for her.

In turn, she helps to guide them through a world of which she has been an unwilling master for far too long. They slip more often than not, but the support systems built around them—even around parentless Henry, who has his friends and his own tenacity to thank—ensure that the road is not so difficult to traverse as it might have been alone. Tharja and her family are proud to call themselves part of these support systems.

It feels right.

The years melt into each other, weaving experiences across every waking moment in a tapestry which her eyes have grown too tired to follow. Regardless, she tries, and the occurrences that stand out—whether they be small things that melt her heart down a little or big things that pull her along for the ride—promise to be forever burnt into her memory.

 

***

 

Cordelia lands a job within a prestigious organization dealing in international affairs of a sort Tharja doesn’t understand. All that she knows is that Cordelia begins work shortly after the New Year is called in, and it is immediately obvious to everybody that she is going to do well; especially if the promotion she earns only a few months out of her probation period is anything to go by. Not even the cries of nepotism can shake her off of her path to the top, because the organization she has chosen, while affiliated with her father in some small capacity, is not governed by anybody particularly close to the Faulkner family.

Besides, Cordelia wins over her detractors quickly and with little effort, looking flawless all the while. Strangely, Tharja doesn’t hear much about the younger woman’s love life, but Cordelia always assures her that things are where she wants them to be, and so she never pries. Their friendship, she finds, is now so beautiful that it would be a shame to ruin it over something so trivial. Robin is particularly proud of her for her restraint, and rewards her by shamelessly dropping hints about “conquests” that Tharja is almost certain Cordelia is too classy to have participated in…though the thought does prove more _amusing_ than she would ever admit.

 

 

 

Gaius, surprisingly, becomes the proud owner of a bakeshop at the age of twenty-four—it is a gift, apparently, from a relative he’d assumed to have written him out of her will. Though it’s clearly hard work, he appears to love it so much that only Chrom comes before Gaius’ work. Well, Chrom and the rest of Gaius’ closest friends, to be fair. In spite of that, he doesn’t mention it until they’ve already found out. Tharja admits to being more than slightly surprised upon walking into the new bakeshop on the corner of Caeda Avenue one morning only to find a familiar mop of orange hair peeking out from behind the counter.

It’s amazing to Tharja, really, the thought that something that had been little more than a hobby for the Gaius of their time could turn into a livelihood for the man before them in the _today_. And he’s damn good at what he does, if Tharja is honest. Gaius a wonderful baker, even if the sudden, unexpected popularity of his shop often leaves him either exhausted or crabby or both on nights when he drops into Tharja’s family’s home for a visit. They forgive him every time, because he’s Gaius, because he’s their father-brother-friend-comrade incarnate, and because he brings cake.

Robin, who is at their home more than her own, it seems, is always quick to cut Tharja an _end slice_ , insisting that she be allowed to prop her legs up on Tharja’s lap before she pushes a forkful of deliciousness into Tharja’s waiting mouth (a regular occurrence which Tiki and Anna comment on with recklessly sensual abandon).

 

 

 

Chrom, unlike both his boyfriend and his childhood best friend, doesn’t find a job outside of what his family does—and Tharja honestly still doesn’t really understand what _they_ do either—but he seems to be happy whenever she sees him. His relationship with Gaius, once threatened by parents who didn’t understand, comes out of things much stronger than ever, and Tharja is happy to be invited to their wedding two years after the Valm trip, as one of Gaius’ bridesmaids. It should be strange, but it isn’t. Nobody even looks at her twice, perhaps forgetting that she is a professor; nobody cares, and that is just fine with her.

On that day Chrom looks glorious, every bit the Exalt he had been even though there is no gold adorning his crisp-cut suit and no gaudy gems strewn about him in odd places; most glaringly, obviously different in Tharja’s eyes is the distinct lack of Falchion hilted at his hips. None of that matters, of course, and Tharja pulls herself out of the past and listens to vows that are far too romantic to have been written by the two bumbling (lovable) idiots standing before them all. It’s a beautiful wedding, really. Especially when her eyes meet Robin’s from across the width of the aisle (because Robin is Chrom’s “best man”, of course).

The look that the younger woman sends her way is enough to leave Tharja anxious with how aroused she is, and yet it is also so loving, so pure, that Tharja is mostly just confused for the rest of the evening, dazed by the effect Robin has on her. Not that she does anything about it, really, because there are still _rules_ , as Maribelle (of all people) casually mentions during the reception. Not even _she_ could guess at just how many rules there are, but Tharja can’t help but thank the young blonde for looking out for them so well. She truly cares.

 

 

 

Maribelle returns to school, this time for her studies in law, and Tharja is concerned for the next four years. The blonde has always been well-balanced and able to navigate through stress, just as she had been during the long-forgotten wartimes, but law school is no joking matter and for a moment it feels as if she is simply a bubble ready to burst at any moment. Tharja’s fears are appeased when she notices just how well Olivia cares for her girlfriend in those stressful years. Maribelle will make a fine lawyer, and eventual judge, but it doesn’t hurt to have such a loving woman at her side. That, and it also doesn’t hurt to have mature older friends like Tharja and Nowi and Tiki and Anna who offer to help her in her studies by being readily available mock-exam-proctors. Maribelle repays their small kindnesses with tickets to shows and galas, and Tharja doesn’t mind because really she’s just in it to help yet another Shepherd fulfill the dreams towards which she has been so meticulously working.

The kisses of gratitude that Robin makes sure to reward Tharja with—because it has been long enough and Tharja’s patience is waning slightly—are only a bonus on top of that wholesome satisfaction of helping somebody whom she has come to love.

 

 

 

Olivia, confident following the acknowledgement of her worth in the eyes of Maribelle’s shrewd parents, follows the path that everybody expects her to (hopes her to) and pursues her dancing at a more serious level than before. With an undergraduate degree out of the way she can now claim to have enough intelligence and grit to survive four years at one of the most rigorous universities in the world, and that is all she needs, really, with the Faulkner name and her own impressive skills and abilities behind her.

She chooses a dance troupe that her mother loves, and works hard day and night, sometimes taking comfort from Maribelle instead of receiving it; and Tharja is so unbelievably proud of her, of them. It makes her smile so hard that her face feels as if it will fall apart, but even then she does not stop. Sometimes the tickets that Maribelle furnishes to Tharja’s family of five are for Olivia’s own performances, and Tharja knows that they take double the joy in watching the pinkette perform to her heart’s content across gilded stages.

When Robin comes to realize why that is, begins to feel it too, Tharja enjoys the performances all the more. Robin’s hand is never out of hers whenever they watch Olivia dance, and it all feels homey in a new way, in a way that Tharja is sure she could become addicted to if she isn’t careful.

 

 

 

Henry is the most concerning of the bunch, for reasons both clear and yet intensely personal. Tharja is more hands-on with him than she is with any of the others, Robin obviously excluded, and she knows that he can tell that she goes to lengths for him that he does not ask for. It is…a good sign, when he accepts instead of pushing her away, and slowly Tharja comes to understand Henry in a way she had never understood her fellow Plegian outcast. He is hurting, hurting so badly, but the girl he is living with as he struggles from one job to the next is patient and kind, and though Tharja knows that this girl cannot heal him—because only he can begin that process for himself—Tharja also knows such selfless love when she sees it, and she is glad. Henry will be fine, she thinks, and eventually it somehow comes up that he should just work with Nah at the museum, since his degree doesn’t seem to be a draw to employers in spite of his bright wit and refreshing eccentricities.

“Really? That’s so cool! Nya ha!”

Tharja knows that it is as much for Nah as it is for Henry, because Nah—who never got to be the youngling she should have been—can understand Henry’s pain. She can understand, perhaps better than anybody in Henry’s life, at all, what it feels like to try for so long for approval that never comes; what it feels like to be broken down and tossed aside by the very people who should have tried their hardest to ensure that you never broke in the first place. Nah understands this so well, and as Henry comes in to work Tharja watches him slowly beginning to piece himself together with Nah’s help; with all of them right by his side.

Robin is the most thrilled of all at how Henry’s life appears to be shaping up, as she says one night when it is just the two of them and two mugs of hot chocolate in the living room. The moon is high and full and Tharja just likes to sit there, looking at Robin, watching her solve the mystery of their lives, and Robin turns to her then and smiles and thanks Tharja for extending her caring past Robin alone.

“When you love someone, and I mean _truly_ love someone, you try your best to love the ones they love.”

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

All through these times, there are pillars in Tharja’s life.

She does not count herself, because there is no point; she knows that she is changing every day, growing, stepping into who she could have been all those centuries upon centuries ago if she’d only let go of her prejudices, of her rigidity, of her unwillingness to know the men and women whose lives she’d served beside. Instead, she watches Tiki, Nowi, Nah, and Anna, and it is so painfully obvious that they are so much better at this than her. They adapt through the years so well that only Tharja (and perhaps Robin) can tell that they are trying their best to hold back; trying their best not to love a batch of Shepherds who won’t live more than sixty or seventy years. They are failing, of course, but they hide their fear of the impending grief so much better than Tharja, who clings to the Shepherds with a fervour she had once thought she was only capable of applying to Robin.

Of course, Robin is the fifth pillar of Tharja’s world, and the moments between them are so bright that it feels as if each new memory is a spark, and together they are a blaze that does not burn outward, but inward, keeping itself alive.

 

 

 

When Robin Grimm is twenty-five and Chrom and Gaius have been married one full year, she asks Tharja if they can “go out” and it takes Tharja a few minutes to remember that that means that Robin wants to be able to take her out on dates and kiss her in public and call her “my girlfriend”. And she isn’t sure if she’s quite ready enough for that so she asks Robin to think about it very carefully while she does the same.

Honestly though, there’s no point in waiting anymore, really, so she agrees after a beat and Robin throws a party in response. The usual suspects are invited and of course, _of course_ Cordelia and Anna and Tiki all band together to do their best teasing _all evening._ It doesn’t help that Robin is a little more than slightly wine-drunk before ten and she’s honestly no better fifteen minutes later, but still.

“Is it hot out here or are your cheeks _really_ just that red?”

Tharja knows the difference between a drunk blush and a pure, unadulterated embarrassment blush, and the red on her cheeks is definitely the latter…but as Robin pulls her in for another kiss—to the sound of _cheering_ (and one half-hearted “Shameless!”), no less—she relaxes and just allows herself to enjoy the company, and the feeling of her girlfriend’s tongue sweeping across her lower lip.

 

 

When Robin Grimm is twenty-six and she and Tharja have been dating for a year, Robin suffers from a slightly-scary panic attack and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. They have been wading through her memories less carefully than they had in the beginning, but sometimes Tharja forgets that though Robin is older now, she is still so very young. Some things require more delicate handling than others, and Tharja admits that she can forget that at times, because Robin has always seemed capable of handling anything.

She feels badly about it for a while, and refuses to sort through any more memories even after Robin has made a full recovery and wishes to resume their work.

Eventually the constant pestering manages to catch her attention, and one day, as gently as she can, Tharja asks, “Why is it so important to you that we do all of this _now_?”

Robin’s response is to pull her into a tight embrace as she whispers, “Because I love you so much that I could wait for you forever, but I don’t want to because I just want to be able to love you _now_.” Robin looks at her almost expectantly; their eyes so close Tharja can pick out every spot where the colour shifts from grey to differing shades of brown. She is confused until she realizes that she’d said something about not wanting to be with Robin for keeps unless the younger woman truly understood what that would mean; for them, and for the future that they may or may not have.

The next day they begin again, and everything seems to go even faster than it had before.

 

 

Shortly after Robin Grimm turns twenty-seven, after she officially moves into Tharja’s family’s home, she and Tharja get into the first big fight they’ve had since Robin was a foolish nineteen year old in her university professor’s office. It starts as something small, a proposal that Tharja takes as a joke, really, nothing more. She doesn’t want to sound rude but honestly marriage is still something only vaguely present in her plans, and it is only when Tharja turns away from the plate she’s been wiping dry that she sees that Robin’s face is set very clearly in “Tharja-I’m-Not-Kidding” mode.

“Robin, please…” She doesn’t know how she can even begin to explain this; patience is a virtue that Robin has in spades, but only in certain areas of life. Apparently, Tharja’s constant dancing around the topic of marriage is one area Robin doesn’t care to wait in any longer.

Not that Tharja blames the younger woman at all.

“No! I’m not a child, and I know when people are keeping things from me.  Especially you. Why don’t you want to get married?”

“I just—

“Why can’t you even give me a reason?”

“Robin, you know that I love you more than my own sanity, but—

“Stop. Please. I know that, I _do_ , but you make it so difficult to believe you sometimes. Why can’t we get married?” Maybe not this year, if you don’t want to do become my wife the same year that Maribelle becomes Olivia’s, but…why won’t you accept my ring?”

“This has very little to do with you, I promise…It’s about me so much more than it is anything else.”

“You won’t even look at it.”

“You’re still so young, Robin…you don’t understand.”

Robin positively _seethes_ at that, and Tharja can tell not because Robin is loud when angry, but because she closes herself off in that way that Tharja has only ever seen Robin Grimm do. “I’ll admit that when I first asked you to marry me, I was foolish and silly, and I didn’t understand very much about you other than that I wanted to always be near you. But now… _gods!_ It’s been _six years_ , Tharja, and we’ve made so much more progress than any of us could have thought. Haven’t I learned enough? Why won’t you accept a marriage between us?

“I want to accept it more than anything in the world.” Tharja knows the sudden alarm on Robin’s face is more because of the break in her voice than anything else, but she can’t hold back the emotion now. “I’m so afraid. Gods, you have no idea how scared I am.”

 

And all it takes is a half-whispered “Why” for Tharja to come apart in the kitchen in Robin’s arms, dish-towels still in hand, tears and words breaking the dam she’d spent so long building up. Tharja doesn’t remember much more of that conversation save for Robin’s repeated whispers; they sound almost like pleas.  

“I’m sorry. “

“I’m so sorry.”

“Tharja, I love you.”

 

They don’t speak about marriage again after that, instead focusing on getting Robin to understand who she was and where she came from—though really that’s unfair because Tharja knows that every Robin was different, was _special_ , and this just feels like she’s lumping them all together even though she’d never dream of it. Still, they continue, and Tharja is pleased to see that Robin is able to separate between “her” and “him” and “they” and “me” with little difficulty, still able to keep a hold on whom she is amidst all of the information that has begun to assail her mind at an almost alarming speed.

 

 

When Robin Grimm is twenty-nine years old, she goes to Chon’sin with Cordelia and Chrom, both of whom are going for work-related purposes. The timeframe of their stay is indefinite, but Tharja is even less worried than she had been about Robin’s trip through Valm. Tharja, who has been granted money for research she’s been meaning to conduct, tells her family that she needs some time to be alone.

It has been such a long, long time since she was well and truly alone.

Unsurprisingly, they respond in the way that only a truly loving family can. They help her get ready, help her pack things she would forget otherwise, and they let her go without fighting because they can see what Tharja has only just begun to see. They can see that being with Robin has made her better yes, but only because _she_ is working towards it for herself, as well. A little alone time, in their opinion, is well-earned.

“I think I know where you’d like to go,” Tiki says, and she has a set of keys in her hand that Tharja would know anywhere, although she’s seen them only once before.

“Thank you,” she whispers as she pulls Tiki in for a hug. The rest of the family joins in, and Tharja is thankful, so thankful, that she can call this her lot in life now. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but…”

“You can just call us whenever you miss us,” Nah says, because the concept of time is trivial and she knows that Tharja will only take as much time away from the world as she deems necessary.

Anna punches her shoulder lightly, “Tiki had me bring stuff over there from time to time but if you _ever_ need anything and aren’t sure where to get it.”

“Make sure you eat! You’re getting thin again, and I don’t like it,” Nowi says, pouting, looking at once like a mother and a child in a way that makes Tharja laugh.

“I’m not going to be gone for forever, or even for very long,” she says, and it’s true, because she only intends to be away long enough for her to be able to sort out the thoughts that have jumbled themselves up in her head. She and Robin have made so much progress. She and her family have come so far together. Though Tharja does not want to admit it, the life that she has cursed for so long has become so enjoyable that she can _almost_ forget how she tires of it all. She could choose to be happy now, she could, truly, but really it isn’t as if Tharja can stop her feelings from changing, so she just accepts her new lease on life and moves forward as best she can.

 

 

 

But that’s not what matters, she thinks as she gets into her car and drives away.

 

 

 

There is one thing more, before she can truly claim happiness for herself and the woman she has loved forever.

 

 

 

Between herself and Robin, there is still one choice to be made.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was and will be AYL's longest chapter.  
> I am feeling all kinds of things right now.  
> Because the next chapter is the last.
> 
> Anyway, feel free to check out [ my Tumblr](https://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com) for rants and reblogs and links and fun conversations and other things. I would love to hear from you!
> 
> The last chapter should be up well before the end of the month!


	27. Promises, Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which two lovers find their eternity.

What should be a retreat of a week or two turns into one month, and then another, and then it is nearing a new semester and still she has not returned. Tharja does not know why but she has become strangely comfortable in the house Tiki gave to her; the one nestled almost exactly where she used to live in the days of Robin and love before the Valmese invasion and Grima took over. Anna wasn’t kidding when she said that she’d begun to stock up on things, and Tharja finds new evidence of Anna’s trademark thoroughness with every passing day. She wants for virtually nothing.

 

Tharja has never felt so spoiled in her entire life, and she wonders if it is just a bit selfish of her that she feels as if she does deserve all of this.

 

She calls her family almost every day. They miss having her around the house, they say, and every conversation is so long that she’s honestly thankful for their family phone plan as the months fade into each other. They want her to come home—that much is obvious in the wistful lilt of Tiki’s voice, the half-concealed sniffle in Nah’s—but they don’t want her to rush herself, and so they never even so much as _ask_ when she plans to return, which helps her in more ways than they can even imagine. It’s been a while since she last felt that she had such complete control over her own time, and so Tharja expresses her gratitude over and over again, in so many combinations and variations of words that she’s beginning to think she should take up poetry.

In turn, she also doesn’t ask them the one question she wants to ask most, because it wouldn’t be fair for her to do that when they have shown so much self-control. She wants to know if they’ve heard from Robin, because she hasn’t. Tharja isn’t surprised that Robin has honoured her request _not_ to communicate during this retreat of hers, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss her girlfriend. Though there is, as always, a little concern hovering just over her shoulders, Tharja tries her best not to think about it too much. Instead she turns her nervous energy into something more productive: those research papers she’d meant to get started on.

It’s easier now than it ever has been: separating her own life and her own experiences from the writing process and simply going off of whatever evidence the archaeologists and historian-aspirants have managed to unearth is usually more than enough, bolstered just a little bit by her personal touch. Tharja doesn’t even know why she bothers with new papers sometimes, except that she does truly enjoy sharing her knowledge of a world long-forgotten—even in such a controlled capacity as this.

 

She’s in the middle of writing about the religious practices of Plegians in the years following the desert-plague of the late 1800s when there’s a knock at her door, and Tharja’s shoulders immediately shoot up from the sudden burst of tension. Nobody has knocked at her door since her arrival, as there are no families in the area and the mailbox is located at the edge of the property, by the white picket fence.

Cautiously, carefully, she practically tiptoes to the little peephole Tiki had had installed—perhaps knowing of Tharja’s paranoia. Magic flows slowly from her fingertips, lazily, coaxing the wood beneath her feet into silence even as she distributes her weight slightly more evenly with every step. She breathes, remembering that she is a nearly two-thousand year old woman with residual magical powers and a more than decent right hook. Releasing a shaking breath, she steps up to the little peephole and is surprised at what she sees, nearly yanking the door off of its hinges in her haste.

 

Standing outside Tharja’s door with a grin on her face and a bouquet of Plegian desert primroses is Robin Grimm. “Honey, I’m home! Surprise! Miss me?”

 

Tharja’s (perhaps overly enthusiastic) response is to pull Robin into her home (and a kiss) without a second thought.

 

 

***

 

 

 “Why didn’t you call?” Tharja asks for what feels like the first and yet fiftieth time.

Robin laughs, rubbing Tharja’s shoulder with one warm, familiar hand, and Tharja sees the slight lines that have begun to etch themselves into Robin’s skin. “You asked me not to contact you, and I…truth be told I almost turned around but I just had to see you. I was hoping the surprise would be enough that you wouldn’t want me to leave right away.”

“Well obviously I wouldn’t want that. You could have let me know though,” Tharja says quietly, one hand fiddling with the leather of Robin’s belt.

“That would ruin the whole _surprise_ element of things, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” Tharja pouts, allowing herself to be just the slightest bit selfish as she curls more closely into Robin’s side. They have an older film on in the background, something black-and-white and quite possibly romantic, but Tharja isn’t really paying attention and neither, she suspects, is Robin. “How was Chon’sin?”

“Scenic, beautiful, culturally storied and wonderfully new to me,” Robin says, and Tharja’s heart swells at just how much the younger woman seems to have enjoyed herself. “But of course I missed you. And I _am_ sorry we’ve been out of touch. Work got stupidly busy, and then I was hatching up this half-witted scheme to surprise you at home, only to be reminded that you were here and quite possibly not in the mood for distractions.”

Tharja laughs at that, because Robin is so young and yet so strangely scatter-brained at times. “Well…you’re always a welcome distraction,” she says, because she means it and because Robin’s presence is so soothing that she can be as open and honest as she wants, even if it sounds like something out of a cheesy romance film. “I’m glad that you _did_ end up surprising me.”

“I’m glad too,” Robin says, tilting Tharja’s chin up so that she can place a kiss upon waiting lips. There’s something in Robin’s eyes, something not quite right, but Tharja loses her question in the back of her throat as Robin’s strong arms lift her up into Robin’s lap and hold her close, wandering hands slipping noiselessly up the back of her shirt before she can think to speak.

 

Robin pulls words from her mouth shortly afterwards, but none of them are related to anything other than the warmth that rushes over Tharja’s skin; over and over again.

 

 

 

By the next morning, she’s all but forgotten about that strange little speck of _something_ , and this is only further cemented by the happiness that pervades everything when Robin asks if they can stay together in this comfortable little house, if only for a shortwhile longer. There’s something in the request, something heavier than Tharja had expected, but at this point she knows better than to pry when she sees the way that Robin’s shoulders have tensed up at her silence. Really, her first thought had been that they could go home together, but if something is bothering Robin…

 

She calls their family that same night to say that they’ll be a while longer in coming home.

 

Nah makes a joke about taking their time and Nowi (the incorrigible woman) can be heard giggling in the background. Anna makes a joke about “taking it easy” on the furniture, and Tiki seconds that with a “Make sure to clean up any messes you make, girls” as the background laughter intensifies and Robin’s good-natured groan wins a renewed bout of mirth.

Tharja doesn’t find that she has the heart to do anything other than laugh too, so that’s what she does. She laughs, and Robin laughs too, and it’s in that small space of time that Tharja notices how the laughter doesn’t quite reach Robin’s eyes. It’s the same look that she’d noticed before getting distracted with certain _other_ parts of Robin, but now it’s unavoidable. Tharja is instantly worried, though not too much so because if Robin is here, than things can’t be too bad.

 

Right?

 

She waits until they’ve said their goodbyes. As soon as the phone is resting on its cradle once more, however, she asks, as gently as she can, “Robin, what’s wrong?”

She’s reminded of Robin’s newfound maturity when the younger woman doesn’t lash out at her defensively, instead nodding and sighing heavily. “I knew you’d notice eventually.”

“What’s wrong?” Tharja asks again, even though the irrational fear that is always lingering just underneath her common sense immediately begins firing on all cylinders, wondering what she might have done.

Robin shakes her head, as if she can see Tharja’s inner thoughts, and takes one of Tharja’s hands in her own, leading her to the couch. “It isn’t anything you’ve done, Tharja, but…I’m glad that we’ll have a little bit of time together, just us.”

“Why?”

“I did a lot of thinking about our relationship while I was in Chon’sin,” Robin begins, but she quickly adds, “ _Not_ anything about us breaking up—you know I would never want that—but just…about everything you’ve been through, and everything I’ve seen. About what it all means.”

Tharja nods, gulping down air and hoping that she doesn’t sound as disgusting as she fears she might. The hand held under Robin’s has begun to sweat, but the white-haired woman beside her doesn’t seem to mind. Aside from the white noise that accompanies the solitude of the house, there is no noise aside from their breathing. “And?”

“I-I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it yet,” Robin says, “But I _do_ know that we’ve still got quite a bit to figure out between us.”

“That might be an understatement,” Tharja says, trying (and failing) at levity, but Robin smiles at her anyway.

“Yeah,” she says, so softly that it almost doesn’t sound as if she’s said anything before. “You’re right.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I want to spend time with you. Talking with you. Laughing with you. Crying with you, if that’s what we need to do.” Robin’s hand is tracing nonsense patterns in her skin, and it’s such a sweet, quiet moment that Tharja’s can’t help but take Robin’s other hand in hers and mimic the gesture. “I want to work through things with you, but mostly I just want to be with you.”

“I think I can handle that,” Tharja says, smiling as she leans in to Robin’s warmth.

 

The next day, she packs up whatever remains of her research.

She can’t very well focus her attentions on her lover if there’s all this work in the way.

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

 

The first week is mostly quiet, and she and Robin don’t reach a point where they can discuss Robin’s feelings in spite of sitting down and talking night in and night out. For some reason Tharja feels odd, as if she’s siphoning off some of Robin’s frustrations and taking them into herself. She doesn’t quite know why that is, but she feels…rushed. As if Robin is younger and in a rush to learn everything she can again.

 

As if something big is about to happen soon.

 

Not wanting to act pre-emptively in case it might push Robin’s mood into a bad place, however, she says nothing and instead waits for Robin to come to her.

 

After all, hadn’t Naga said she would, all those long years ago?

 

 

 

She waits one week. Robin says nothing of note, nothing that would indicate that she’s feeling any sort of strain although Tharja can see it. She can see how frazzled Robin is getting, how worn at the edges the white-haired woman looks whenever she thinks Tharja can’t see her.

 

 

 

 

 

She waits two weeks. Still, things carry on as if everything is normal, and Tharja begins to find herself wondering if there’s anything amiss at all. Then she notices the way that Robin watches her, timid and scared, as if sometimes she feels that Tharja might disappear should she touch her, and Tharja wonders why that is. Ever since their relationship became official and public, she has not shied away from Robin’s touch, has welcomed it, in fact, even when the normally-shameless Robin had blushed and tried her best to keep them apart.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

It is three weeks before she finally senses a noticeable shift in Robin’s mood, but one morning it happens. Tharja does not know it, but it is the day when everything in her life changes.

 

The morning begins simply enough. She wakes not with the second bell of her alarm, but with the distinct feeling of Robin’s eyes on her. The same warm, tingling feeling she had tried to ignore on the battlefield, lest it cost the life she had promised to Robin’s love. The same warm, tingling feeling that she had often tried to ignore when she stood in front of a classroom, lest she lose hold of her resolve and crumble before a student whom she had no right to love so strongly.

“I’m sorry…did I wake you?” When Robin speaks, Tharja catches the faintest whiff of spearmint on the younger woman’s breath.

Tharja smiles fondly—how many times was it when it would be she who woke first and spent the better part of a morning simply taking in the beauty of Robin’s sleeping face? “No, it’s fine.” Her voice is morning-soft, but Tharja turns away slowly. She is unsurprised when Robin does not question her.

 

 

 

They both have a thing about morning breath.

 

 

 

When she returns it’s as if Robin hasn’t moved, and she takes a second to just admire the way that Robin looks, propped up on her pillows, the thin straps of her tank top hidden beneath a curtain of long white hair. Robin is beautiful backed by the beginnings of the bright sunlight through their curtains. Tharja hugs her own arms, bare as they are, and allows herself one more second just to look. The whisper of her nightgown against her thighs barely registers as she drinks in the vision of Robin before her, mind wandering to mere hours before this moment.

“Like what you see?” Robin asks, but the question sounds strangely distant. Lacking in Robin’s typical flirtatiousness. A way to fill the emptiness between them, if only for a passing second.

“You know I do,” she replies before sneaking back under the covers. It’s begun to get just a touch too cold in the mornings.

Robin smiles gently, but the undercurrent of worry in her eyes has already set Tharja on edge, and she sits up, moving as close to Robin as she can without getting right into the younger woman’s face. The tension in Robin’s body is so pressing, so very present, that Tharja is concerned. Somehow, some way, Robin has managed to work her mind up to a point that Tharja has rarely seen, and it is frightening.

“What is it?”

 

The next words out of Robin’s mouth are perhaps among those she was least expecting to hear this early in the morning.

 

“Tharja, tell me honestly…do you love me only because my soul once belonged to your wife?”

 

She knows that her posture has tensed and that Robin can feel it; but Tharja is immediately unsettled by the question and unable to relax. There had been no signs of such heavy thoughts in Robin’s mind the night before; but perhaps, she thinks, Robin had only been keeping them hidden. Besides, it was only a matter of time before they spoke on this and sooner is, according to everybody she’s asked, better than later.

Even after all these years it can be difficult to read the woman she loves, though Tharja will never stop trying.

“Why would you even think to ask me something like that?” She knows that that in no way answers the question, but her own curiosity has gotten the better of her. And besides, it is just the two of them here. There will be nobody to distract them. They can approach this conversation at whatever pace they need to.

Robin’s eyes fall on hers with a strange firmness before dancing off to the side, caught in her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. "I have seen so little of the woman I was in that time, but I can at least say this with confidence: I may have her face, and in some ways I may act similarly to her, but I am _not_ Lady Robin, Grandmaster of Ylisse and Hero of the Fallen Wars."

 

Tharja notes the catch in Robin's voice and prepares for the sword to fall. Even the comfort of the sheets pooled about her hips can do little to make this situation feel any less pivotal; any less urgent than it suddenly feels.                                                    

                            

Robin continues, "I could never be that person. I will never know how to love the world the way she did, because I don't have her faith in goodness. I will never be a hero. I am not that Robin." It sounds as if she is trying to convince herself of this as much as Tharja. “I’m not the woman you married.”                      

For her part Tharja is startled, though she tries her best to hide her confusion and the worry that has begun to spread, crawling just under her skin. Why isn't Robin looking her in the eyes, at least? After all they’ve been through together, after all these years of hiding, of taking things so painfully, _stupidly,_ slowly, does she not deserve even that?

“Robin, I—

Robin makes a waving motion to signal Tharja’s silence, the gesture slightly imperious even though there is no silver-plated glove covering her hand; no Plegian robe and Ylissean armour adorning her arm.              

"Where she was selfless, I am not. I can’t be.” Robin’s voice is strangely even as she speaks, as if she has rehearsed these same words to herself over and over again. "I am not willing to die and leave those I love behind, not even if my doing so damns a future generation to suffer. I am not willing to sacrifice myself for the good of a world that will never be able to give back what I give up.                                                    

"I could never be so selfless, because by being selfish I've been able to survive. By being selfish, I've been able to make myself happy even though the entire world sometimes seems intent to take every bit of happiness I can find away from me."                                                                 

As Tharja listens, she is confused. She has no idea what Robin is trying to say. Once again, though it is perhaps not the appropriate time or place, she is reminded that there is still so much about Robin Grimm that she has yet to learn. Robin’s life has been perhaps more difficult than any of them could have thought. In passing Tharja thinks, as she looks upon the woman in her bed, that Henry is not the only one of the Shepherds to have suffered of a broken past.

 

The younger woman smiles though—a good sign—and when she takes Tharja's hand, Tharja knows that somehow, everything will be alright.

 

Robin is crying in spite of the upward turn of her lips, and Tharja feels the beginnings of wetness on her own cheeks. Robin's voice cracks a little, and her grip on Tharja's hand tightens. "I want you to know just how much I love you, but I'm afraid that you don't see me as my own person."

"Robin, I..."

"If you love me because you think I'm just like her, I—

"Don't," Tharja says shakily, because if she hasn't made it clear yet just how much she loves Robin Grimm for being herself, then she's been doing everything all wrong. "I love you for just what you are. I always have. No matter what changes, no matter what is or is not the same, I love you because I fell in love with everything about you as I know you now." With a careful hand she guides Robin’s chin until they are eye to eye, and she wills, more than anything, for Robin to understand how sincere her words truly are.

 

She means it all; oh, how she means it.

 

Robin lets out a sob that rocks her body forward, and she pulls Tharja by the hand until they are so close they're almost indistinguishable from each other, tangled up in hair and sheets and separated only by the thinnest fabrics against their bodies. The younger woman is warm and soft and as Robin leaves a trail of tear-stained kisses on her face, Tharja feels her own frame shake in time with Robin's.

"Tharja, please." Robin's voice is a hoarse, prayerful whisper. "Please, tell me that I can be selfish one more time."

"Of course you can," Tharja says, though she’s still not quite sure where this is going. Her own voice is calm in comparison, a side effect of years of speaking through her tears. “Of course you can.”

"Let me be selfish, just one more time. I can't let this be all that there is. Please, let me be with you forever."

Tharja is tired of living, so tired of it, but Robin is here and Robin is hers, and there has only ever been one decision. Whatever Robin wants, that is what Tharja will do. The decision to live or to die, Tharja knows now that it had never been hers. It isn’t her life anymore. It never has been.

_Stop_. She tells herself. _Don’t say that._

 

It is her life too.

 

Not just Robin’s.

 

If she gives this final gift to the woman she loves, if she takes the promise of eternity and binds them both to it and to each other, she will never die—or at least, she will not meet with death for some millennia more. The freedom she had long wished for will elude her, possibly forever.

 

But would it be so difficult a life?

 

Has she not begun to enjoy what the world has to offer? Has she not witnessed the turning of ages, the shifting of eras, and enjoyed it in spite of having nothing but the family she’d found to share it with? Having Robin through the rest of the turns and twists of the world could only be a good thing, could only be exactly that for which she has been searching all this time.

In a way, that is what Robin is—exactly that.

Surely there is freedom in this, she thinks. Freedom in sharing the wonders of a charmed life with the woman she’s tried to find for nigh on two millennia. Robin is so bright and so broken, so scared of losing somebody she has only begun to know—because a decade means so little when one has lived so long—and it reminds Tharja so much of herself that she knows she cannot take this away. It cannot be throwing away her own happiness if it would kill her more to disappoint Robin, to shatter dreams that the younger woman has clearly held back from whispering aloud until now.

 

"Whatever you want, Robin."

 

The woman in her arms sobs again, in relief this time, and Tharja feels Robin's lips on hers. "I love you, Tharja, I love you."

Tharja knows that the decision, informal though it is, signals the end of her contract with Naga, but she allows herself a moment more to indulge in the sight of Robin's face. Even with the salt of her tears rimming red around her eyes, Robin is the most beautiful woman that Tharja has ever known.

She looks as if she cannot believe Tharja's words, and she says, voice sounding like the tears that still fall from her eyes, "I promise, I will fill the rest of your life with the joy you should have had from the start."

Tharja looks back quickly on what sticks out of the life she has lived thus far, and there is very little happiness there comparative to everything else.

Instead there is blood and loss and pain. Hatred and fear and death in the sands. Rejection and competition and games being played behind the scenes and before her eyes, and sometimes it is Robin who casts the loaded dice, aiming for odds against Tharja’s favour. Sometimes it is Robin who is the cruelest of all.

But still, she is here now, and she is promising what none but the first iteration of her soul has ever promised Tharja before.

 

 

 

Bliss.                                 

 

 

                               

"Thank you, Robin." She waits until Robin has wiped her tears away, and then Tharja leans down and brings her lips to Robin's ear. In her voice is a promise that she hopes the younger woman will cherish as she guides Robin through the process of accepting Naga’s gift wholeheartedly. Tharja cannot remember learning such specific phrases, and the Old Speech feels heavy and unfamiliar on her tongue, but she know, somehow, that they will not falter here.

Naga will not allow them to.

 

The latent power of the queen of the divine dragons fills her, sweeping through her very blood as it swallows them both in a ball of light, and they are somewhere else—somewhere in a space entirely their own. It is dazzling, this place, and Tharja feels nothing against her skin save for a rush of heat and the prickling of magic across every inch of her body. The world around them is blank all she can see is Robin, pale hair fading into the unending light around them.

 

The shade of a memory passes over her eyes for a moment; she has been here but once before.

 

She does not hear the words now as they pour out of her mouth, slipping with the slow grace of sand in the eye of an hourglass. The last remnants of her mortality, too, are slipping away, so far away, and she hears muffled whispers from all corners of this strange little pocket in space and time. Naga’s power, it seems, has not suffered from the passage of years.

_Is this right? Is this what I want?_

_Does it matter what I want?_

_It_ does. _And what I want is…_ us.

 

Robin groans lowly, voice rumbling through words she has never spoken before as the change fills her body. For a moment Tharja forgets everything but the radiance of the woman before her, blocking out the harshness of the light to focus on the younger woman’s. Robin is young still, not the old crone that Tharja had been before receiving her own gift, and so the changes are not as obvious, with so little age to reverse.

In spite of that, Tharja can see that there is a glow to Robin’s skin. An almost frightening perfection radiates off of the white-haired woman in waves when Naga’s final rays of power wash away. Gone are the faint lines Tharja has begun to notice, the shadows and the lack of tautness casting age upon Robin’s flesh. Gone is the fear of mortal death that hangs over all mortals as a shroud.

“Now we can be together forever, Tharja,” Robin says. Her voice sounds both near and far to Tharja’s ears.

 _Forever_. Tharja is almost afraid of the concept. Almost afraid because she still doesn’t know how this will affect them in the long run, in spite of her best efforts to think positively.

 

Almost afraid of the idea that her love alone will need to carry them through the changing of the world over and over and over again—but to admit that to herself would be like saying she is not sure in Robin’s love, and she is.

 

Almost afraid because now that she has Robin, she has no other goals to see fulfilled; no other dreams that wait for her to realize them into being.

 

Afraid because now that they have all the time in the world to learn about each other, there can be no more hiding from their pasts. Not the long, drawn-out, nearly mythical past Tharja has already started to share, nor the shorter, yet somehow more mysterious past Robin has tried her best to cover up—has covered up exceedingly well even after nearly a decade of opening herself, her thoughts, her entirety to Tharja.

 

Almost afraid because there is no space for secrets between them now; and there never will be such a space again.

 

If Robin catches the doubt that flickers across her eyes she is quick in her attempt to dismiss Tharja’s worry. “I do not regret my selfishness, Tharja, because it has given me you.” She smiles then, with more maturity than should strictly be possible on a woman this young, this yet untouched by the world, but Tharja does not notice as she allows herself to be taken up into Robin’s arms. The light around them fades, and she can feel the softness of the sheets against her skin once more, the lace trimming of her nightgown scratching gently at her thighs, at her chest. Robin’s embrace is warm.

 

It should feel like home.

 

It does not.

 

But, she thinks, not in a way that scares her.

 

It’s just…different.

 

She cannot place how, but it _is,_ and yet it feels like Robin and that is enough.

 

Robin tilts her chin up, holding back just before the union of their lips can come to pass. Her breath is warm and pleasant, almost addling, intoxicating to Tharja’s weary mind. Robin smiles again and takes a lock of Tharja’s hair in her free hand, twining the fine strands around her slim, perfect fingers.

“Now you belong to me as I do to you, and we will never part again.” Robin smirks against her lips, the action feeling more comforting than it should as Robin’s voice—silken as it never has been before—whispers into Tharja’s soft half-smile. “Have you anything to say, my love?”

And against her judgement Tharja whispers back.

“Yes.”

And Robin laughs lowly and kisses her once, then twice, then whispers against her lips once more. “What is it?”

Tharja takes Robin’s hand in hers, feeling the forever-smooth skin under her fingertips. With her other hand she sweeps a loose wisp of white hair from Robin’s cheeks, revelling in the promise of _always_ that sparks between them with every touch. “I love you.”

“Oh?” Robin’s eyes twinkle with the light of the sun, outshining even that. “Show me.”

 

 

 

And Tharja does, slowly, surely, with more freedom of feeling than she has ever allowed for herself as her hands travel over enchanted flesh, as her lips seek the places Robin most wishes them to find.

 

 

 

When they lie together in the contented silence that follows, Robin holds her still and close. Tharja looks into the eyes of her infinity and breathes, and the words tumble from her lips as a promise of the highest order; the most honest words ever to have been spoken.

 

"Across your lifetimes, and now forever...I love you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, my friends, is the end. Went through quite a few different scenarios for these two but I had to give them this. Hope it was to your enjoyment.
> 
> The labour of nine months and four days (this story is almost literally my child) has been completed, and I am so thankful to all of you for reading, commenting, showing me your appreciation, and all that jazz. Sometimes, and I'm being honest, I only continued because of you. I'll be going through and editing past chapters so that things are all nice and pretty and not awful, but the majority of the work has been done.
> 
> Drop me a line [ on Tumblr ](http://lazywritergirl.tumblr.com) if you have anything you want to say or what not; I'd love to hear from you.
> 
> Bye for now; though NaNo fast approaches, I'll be back soon with something new...just wait for me.


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